


Mirror Mirror

by dont-tell-them-i-write-phan (QueenBoudicatheGreat)



Series: The Great Tumblr Migration [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-19 07:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 56,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBoudicatheGreat/pseuds/dont-tell-them-i-write-phan
Summary: Dan and Phil get invited to stay at a historical castle with Martyn and Cornelia. Contrariwise, Daniel and Philip aren’t invited anywhere, but not many people can say no to a highly trained thief and a dragon. But that’s totally unrelated
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: The Great Tumblr Migration [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641895
Kudos: 4





	Mirror Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2017 Phandom Big Bang! As such, I will be including the bomb ass art I got for it!

Dan stretched long and lazily, blinking in the bright light streaming in from the window of his room. He laid in bed for a few minutes trying to suss out how long he had slept in and if Phil was awake or not. Upon realizing the angle of the sun and the distinct lack of coffee smell in the air, he decided he was definitely up way earlier than Phil. Yawning one last time, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and shuffled out into the hall. He took the opportunity to peek into Phil’s room to check on him. He smiled when he saw his boyfriend still snoring away, hair in complete disarray. He made his way to the kitchen where he went to poking about in the fridge to see what he could make them for breakfast. He decided on omelettes after finding some onion and peppers left over from a few days before. **  
**

As if summoned by the scent of cooking eggs Phil stumbled into the kitchen. Or well, he would have if he hadn’t run face first into the door jamb. He rubbed his head and grumbled under his breath and properly made his way into the kitchen. All the while Dan cackled at his misfortune.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dan cooed sarcastically. Phil glared and started mixing up his mandatory morning coffee.

“Your eggs are burning,” he said in lieu of a greeting. He smirked behind his coffee cup and watched Dan swear and whip around to try and save his omelette as best he could.

“You’re the worst,” Dan scowled, pouting at his extra-crispy eggs.

Phil cocked a brow and grabbed the unburned, cheese-free breakfast Dan had made for him. “I mean at least I warned you instead of letting you turn them to charcoal.”

“I deserve so much better, honestly.”

“Of course you do,” Phil agreed breezily, pulling Dan in for a quick good morning peck. “So, how’d you sleep?”

Dan shrugged noncommittally. “Alright, I guess. I actually went to bed before sunrise so I got a few hours. You?”

“I actually had a super weird dream. I hate I can’t remember any more of it than I can because I’m pretty sure I was flying at one point.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember much of mine, either. I think I robbed a bank or something, though.”

Phil snorted and grinned. He was clearly more awake now that he’d gotten caffeine and conversation. “You? Robbing a bank? You sure about that?”

“Oh, don’t laugh too much Mr Lester, you were driving the getaway car,” Dan snickered. “Honestly, I can’t decide what’s more ridiculous: Me somehow managing to steal money from someone or you managing to drive us anywhere but off a cliff.”

“You mean you wouldn’t want to Thelma and Louise it with me?” Phil pouted.

“Sorry, babe, but I’m not planning on dying with or without you any day soon.” Dan grinned, flicking one of the darker burn spots across the table at Phil.

“Well, then I suppose we’d best avoid robbing any banks today.”

“Shit, there goes my plan for the day.”

Phil huffed out a little half laugh and let a comfortable silence fall over them while they finished eating. “Hey, do you actually have any plans for today?” Phil asked, grabbing Dan’s plate and cup and putting all their dishes in the dishwasher. “Martyn and Cornelia are in town and wanted to meet for a late lunch if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dan shrugged and stood up. “I was just going to spend today editing that gaming video, but I’m going to need a break around then.”

“I hate to distract you from your super productive day, but do you maybe want to watch a couple episodes of Erased?”

“I suppose you could manage to convince me,” Dan grinned. “Might need to really twist my arm, though.”

Phil rolled his eyes fondly and shoved Dan toward the lounge. “Shove off, and get everything set up, it’s your turn.”

_________

Several hours and answered emails later, Phil’s phone chirped. On his screen was a reminder that he and Dan needed to start getting ready if they wanted to make it to lunch on time. He wrested himself from the couch’s comfortable grasp and meandered towards his room. popping his head in Dan’s room to check on him and remind him of their plans. He was expecting to see Dan hunched over the computer, headphones blocking out all but the loudest distractions. Instead, he found Dan leaning back as far as the desk chair would allow and aimlessly staring at the ceiling. He turned in slow circles and listened to the soft indie music drifting through the air. “How’s the editing going?” Phil asked to announce his presence, already knowing how well editing was going.

Dan jolted at the sudden interruption, but recovered and smiled at his boyfriend. “Ah, well, not great,” he admitted. “It’s just been one of those days, you know? I swear I can’t focus on anything for more than two minutes before I’m back to staring at the ceiling.”

Phil walked over and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You need to talk about it?” he asked, clearly concerned.

Dan smiled and shook his head, grabbing Phil’s hands in his own. “Nah, I promise it’s nothing to worry about. It just feels like there’s something really big coming up that we’re not prepared for and there’s nothing we can do.”

Phil frowned and hummed in thought. “Any idea what it could be? I mean we don’t have any super big projects going on and we’ve pretty much finished unpacking everything. Is there something we need to do for YouTube that I’m forgetting?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t think there’s actually anything it’s just one of those things that you can’t really explain away.”

Phil hummed. “Yeah, I know those. Well, we can get prepared for our lunch date, so take a break and get dressed.”

“See you in an hour and a half, then,” Dan joked.

Phil snorted and gently shoved Dan’s shoulder. “Better not take you that long or I will leave you here.” Dan squawked about how he’d better not do that if he wanted a boyfriend for long. Yet, his cries fell on deaf ears as Phil stepped into his room to get dressed.

As usual, Phil was ready to go long before Dan and decided to wait for him out in the lounge. Fortunately, Dan was actually joking when he said how long it would take him to get ready. He appeared not too long after in fresh, neat clothes and brushed but not straightened hair. “You ready to go?” he asked, digging around in their junk bowl for the keys to the flat.

“Yeah,” Phil answered, standing up and popping his back.

“Cool,” Dan muttered absently. He ushered Phil out the front door before following him out and clicking the lock. “Where are we even going, by the way?”

“Misato!” Phil said with emphasis in the last half of the word.

“That place is good, we ought to go there more often.”

“It is really good but the tube ride is so long is it worth it?”

“Yeah, good point, maybe we shouldn’t.”

Phil grunted in agreement and they fell into an easy silence as they walked to the station. Dan seemed lost in his own world of thought, but Phil was very carefully watching him. It wasn’t unusual for the two of them to spend more than average amount of time in their relationship in silence. Once you got that comfortable with another person you get quiet. But there was some unspoken thing going on with Dan and Phil could tell. Unfortunately, no matter how long he spent staring at his boyfriend, he couldn’t read his mind. He was no closer to finding the source of whatever it was that had Dan so off balance without asking. Something told him that would get absolutely nothing done.

“So, I never asked, what’s Martyn doing in town?” Dan asked as they swayed from side to side with the motion of the near-empty train car they were in.

“Not sure, he didn’t say,” Phil shrugged. “Maybe he’s wishing you an early birthday?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Phil, I don’t know if you remember, but we’re spending three days up north with your whole family for my birthday next week, so I doubt it’s that.” He quirked the corner of his mouth up into a devious grin. “Maybe he has some salacious gift he doesn’t want to give us in front of your mum.”

Phil wrinkled his nose, looking vaguely green at the mere idea of it. “Sorry, but even if he is here to give you that we’re not keeping it. There’s no way I’m even risking thoughts of my brother while we’re fucking.”

Dan smirked and bumped their arms together. “I doubt that’s his goal. Besides, he’d be hard-pressed to get us anything new anyways.” Phil turned absolutely scarlet and Dan bubbled over with giggles. For a man who enjoyed sex as much as he did, Phil was awfully bashful when it came to discussing it.

“You’re the worst person,” Phil pouted, pulling out his phone to double check their directions.

“Should I tweet that then?” Dan teased, retrieving his own phone from his pocket. “Dan Howell, statistically speaking the worst person in the world according to Phil Lester.”

Phil huffed indignantly but otherwise ignored Dan until his phone lit up with a Twitter notification.

Daniel Howell Tweeted: lol so apparently im statistically the worst person. thanks for the update @AmazingPhil

Phil looked up at Dan, who was grinning widely at him, and quirked a brow and went back to typing on his phone. Dan puffed his cheeks at the disappointing lack of response and went back to scrolling. That is until his phone lit up with a notification of its own.

Phil Lester replied: And you’re the one who said to keep the online flirting to a minimum. smh

Dan sputtered and gawked at Phil who was pleasantly smiling at his phone like he’d done nothing wrong. To be fair, he actually hadn’t done anything wrong. But it was a well-known fact that nothing made Dan more embarrassed than being called out on his flirting. “I should tell everyone that we’re actually on our way to get super kinky sex toys from your brother,” Dan threatened.

“You totally should. Make sure you tag my parents and your grandmother while you’re at it.”

Dan narrowed his eyes, trying to ignore the tingling in his cheeks that came from the blood ever so slowly retreating back to where it belonged. “You win this round, Phil Lester.”

Phil grinned and pulled his pouting boyfriend in by the waist. Glancing around, he rose up slightly on his toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Cheer up, love. The wind will change and your face will be stuck like that.”

“You know, the more you say that the less I believe your mum actually told you that.”

Phil snickered and shook his head, so Dan went back to ignoring him in favour of his feed. He was actually in the middle of a rather juicy Twitter chain when Phil nudged his arm to alert him of their impending stop. When the car shuddered to a stop they shuffled onto the much more crowded platform. Thanks to years of practice, they made their way to the street without losing sight of each other. “Alright, Mr Map, where is this place?” Dan asked, looking around. Maybe if he searched the sushi restaurant would materialize in the middle of the street.

“Around the corner here,” Phil said with all the confidence of a man staring down at a set of Google provided directions. “Assuming Martyn is early like he always is, we’ll get there just in time to order drinks.” Just as Phil predicted, they made it to the restaurant in time to see a waiter taking Martyn and Cornelia’s orders. After explaining to the hostess that their party was already seated, they managed to catch the waiter and request their drinks.

“Long time no see,” Martyn joked, reaching out to shake their hands while Cornelia gave them both quick hugs around the neck.

“It is always lovely to see you both,” Cornelia beamed. “We should do it more often; I feel like we only ever get together for work.”

“We see each other at vacations,” Dan corrected. “So it’s more like we only see each other for work or when we’re being babysat.” Cornelia snickered a bit, and Dan smiled at them both. “So, what prompted you to summon us?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Dan blushed while the rest of the table laughed. “That didn’t come out quite like I expected it to.”

“What Dan means is, what’s up, you two?” Phil clarified, bumping against his boyfriend fondly.

“Not much,” Martyn shrugged. “It seems like the whole YouTube community is taking a break after last year. We’ve mostly been working on some smaller projects for people.”

“It’s letting us meet loads of neat people,” Cornelia added. “There’s this one lady who runs the tourist department of Hever Castle. She was actually so impressed with the work we did she offered us a complimentary night this weekend.”

“Holy cow, that’s cool,” Phil marvelled. “I hope you two have fun.”

As he said that Martyn’s phone dinged loudly, announcing the arrival of an email. Martyn quickly scanned the email and looked up, pleasantly surprised. “Funny enough, that’s her now. Apparently, there was a last minute cancellation. She’s told us to invite some other people to come with us this weekend. What do you say, a free night in a luxury castle hotel with your big bro?”

“We’re in,” Dan beamed. Phil raised a brow at his eagerness but Dan just rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, you know you want to spend the night in a castle. Plus it’s a great chance to take a break and hang out with Martyn and Cornelia.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to refuse, but maybe a bit more conversation next time?”

“Don’t worry, Phil,” Cornelia grinned. “Martyn and I already know the two of you communicate telepathically; your secret is safe with us.”

Dan barked out one of his signature goose laughs, garnering the attention of the nearby table, but he paid them no mind. “Well, I guess that means I’d better finish editing that video in the next couple days if we want to upload it Monday.”

“I can help if you get stuck,” Phil offered. “I’m pretty good at Daniel Howell editing if I do say so myself. They’d never even notice.”

“Well, I guess that’s our weekend plans sorted,” Martyn said. “Now, we’ve just got to decide on lunch.”

When their waiter returned they ordered their sushi. They spent an hour or so swapping stories. Phil told a rather dramatized version of an incident a lady walking her three dogs. But as he stayed quiet when Dan demonized their neighbours Dan figured they’d both let it slide. After, Cornelia regretfully reminded Martyn that they had a meeting to get to. Another round of handshakes and hugs later they were on the street to their next destination.

“Crazy how that worked out, isn’t it?” Dan asked, squinting up at the suddenly dark sky to see if they’d make it home before they got soaked.

“Yeah,” Phil mumbled in agreement. He didn’t need clarification to know Dan was referring to their sudden weekend trip. He felt there was something off about the whole thing, but he shrugged it off, choosing to focus on the good. “Crazy.”

_______________

“Halt!”

Daniel laughed jovially and put on a burst of speed to outrun the guards hot on his trail, quickly losing them in the dark trees. The reasonably large satchel of coins and jewels attached to his belt bounced against his thigh with every step, jingling merrily. Skidding across loose gravel and dirt he darted through the woods until he came to a sudden stop at the sheer edge of a cliff. He grinned, looking over the edge that went straight down to a ravine that ended in a lake several hundred feet down, and waited. The guards soon came tumbling out of the woods to see the dark elf smirking victoriously with one foot over the edge of the cliff.

 **Philip, I hope you’re ready for this** Daniel thought offhandedly. Then with a jaunty wave to the guards and a sarcastic “Better luck next time,” he took that last backwards step

Falling had always been a very odd feeling for Daniel. On one hand, there was the absolute terror that always accompanied plummeting towards your death so quickly your breath was left far above your head. On the other, there was the absolutely exhilarating feeling of knowing that he’d be fine at the end as long as he had Philip. As predicted after only a few seconds of falling Daniel found himself safely (albeit harshly) landing on the back of a great black dragon.

 **You shouldn’t have done that** , Philip nagged telepathically while Daniel panted in efforts to regain his lost breath. There’s a line between doing what has to be done and recklessly endangering yourself and you and I both know you crossed that line.

“What does it _matter_?” Daniel whined, flopping back dramatically. “We got the jewels and everyone is fine so it’s not a problem. I didn’t even kill anyone. You’re just a worry wart.” Suddenly Philip’s back spines shot up a bit, harshly poking Daniel all down his back causing him to shoot up with a cry of pain and rub his back. “What was that for, you overgrown lizard?”

**If I’m a worry wart then _you’re_ a dramatic little nuisance. It’d probably be better for both of us if I found a travelling theatre troupe and left _them_ to deal with you.**

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel pouted. “Just take us home. I’m hungry as fuck. I’ll probably waste away and die before I get any decent food.”

Philip chuckled, a strange sound to come from a dragon as it sounded more like a hissing earthquake than laughter. There was also the minor inconvenience that when he did it smoke unfurled from his nostrils which sent it straight into Daniel’s face when they were flying causing him to squawk and sputter. **You are the biggest baby I have ever met.**

Daniel muttered something about dumb winged snakes but settled back down for the ride. It wasn’t very far to the cave they had claimed as their lair (Well, Philip claimed it as his lair. Daniel showed up and made himself at home, a fact Philip never hesitated to remind him of.) but he always enjoyed any time spent riding Philip as it was something he actually didn’t get to do all that often. Most of their time was spent in and around their cave with Philip lounging about admiring his hoard, but whenever Philip got a thirst for gold or Daniel for adventure they had to travel and the quickest and easiest way was flight.

However, Daniel’s favourite times were when Philip decided he needed to stretch his wings and they would aimlessly fly around for hours. Usually Philip snap that he’d had enough of Daniel and that was the main reason he was leaving in the first place (Daniel honestly couldn’t blame him. Dragons were, by nature, jealous and solitary creatures so the very fact that Philip hadn’t already eaten him already was a miracle in and of itself,) but every now and then he’d smile at Daniel, all sharp-toothed and welcoming, and invite him along. They’d fly and fly with no destination in mind, Daniel clinging to Philip for his life as they soared and dove and flipped and spiralled through and above clouds, both of them loving every moment of it.

After an hour or two Philip would land in some forgotten meadow or on an abandoned beach to let Daniel back on solid ground for a rest and to get his heart rate back down. As always, before long the boy was begging to get back in the sky, much to the dragon’s amusement. There was just something about the way he could feel every last muscle of Philip’s wings beat beneath him combined with the weightlessness he felt and the rush of excitement every time Philip did anything outside of the normal that made Daniel’s chest tight with joy.

As if reading his mind, (which, knowing the sneaky lizard was probably accurate) Philip beat his wings extra hard, sending them shooting up before taking a nosedive towards the lake below, pulling up at the last minute to the sound of Daniel’s cries of joy. Daniel leaned over Philip’s shoulder as much as he knew he could just to see his own grinning face reflected in the perfectly smooth water they were almost skimming over. He was tempted to reach down and trail his fingers over the surface of the water but he knew from experience he’d just lose his balance and fall in and hitting water while flying at high speeds is never fun. Also, he knew (again, from experience) that Philip would just fly off and be absolutely no help and he’d have to swim to shore and walk home, which was never any fun.

Sensing Daniel’s ever-weakening restraint, Philip snorted with an eye-roll and beat his wings hard a few times to get them back up, past the tops of the trees and amongst the clouds. Traveling at night had more than its fair share of advantages in addition to Daniel’s sensitivity to sunlight, and Philip’s personal favourite was the fact that his dark body blended in seamlessly with the night sky, meaning they could fly undetected without worrying about tree cover slowing them down.

They flew for almost an hour when the forest started to thin out before finally letting out into the sea. Philip rumbled his delight along with Daniel as he swooped down so they could find the mouth of their home along the craggy shore. When Philip found the cave - about a hundred years ago, long before he and Daniel crossed paths - it had been much smaller than it was now, but after so many years of carving it was more than suitable for a dragon his size and age. In fact, if he kept up work on it, it would be an impressively large lair for when he was an ancient dragon and merely had to worry about guarding the hoard he’d amassed instead of trying to grow it. As it was, it had a main area that was mostly devoid of any indication of his presence to dissuade intruders and two antechambers, one for his hoard and sleeping and the other for everything else. Before it had stayed mostly empty as Philip wasn’t fond of kidnapping royals or challenging knights, but Daniel had taken over and filled it with creature comforts. Philip found most of them useless and a waste of space but even he could admit that sometimes that bed Daniel had stolen was more comfortable than a pile of gold. 

As soon as they landed and Daniel was off of his back, Philip polymorphed into his humanoid shape. He was rather proud of his polymorph shape as it was mostly human, but with very distinguishing dragon features including his wings and tail, and had taken him years to perfect. There was no bigger shame amongst dragons than someone who couldn’t control their powers enough to change shape, but it was a well-known belief that if you could do it completely perfect then maybe you weren’t a real dragon and deserved to stay human. “So, what did you manage to get?” he asked eagerly, eyeing the rather small bag in Daniel’s hand.

“Eh, mostly the usual,” Daniel shrugged, digging around blindly. “Mostly a few handfuls of gold pieces, and a few jewels we can sell in town for a _very_ shiny copper piece.” He suddenly grinned and pulled out what he was looking for and held it up for inspection. “However, I think you’ll be much more interested in this.”

Without blinking, Philip snatched up the offered necklace with a clawed hand and brought it up close. It was made of gold with a small, thin but strong chain with a bright red jewel no bigger than the tip of Daniel’s littlest finger. It was pretty, but common and was worth more than most people had seen in their lives, but was far from the most valuable thing in the castle. No, it wasn’t the monetary worth of the necklace that had Philip so entranced, it was the craftsmanship. Every link of the fine chain had been forged and smithed into the exact perfect shape so that it fit in with its neighbour and the tiny jewel had been ever so carefully cut so that the light glinted at every angle. Something like this would have taken a master jeweller at least a few days to create, but based on the tiniest imperfections it had to have been done by an amateur, and that was the sweetest bit of all. It had taken someone at least two weeks of dedicated labour to craft this and Philip had stolen it, essentially stealing that time away as well. It was absolutely _wonderful_. 

“Is there anything else in there you want for your hoard?” Daniel asked breezily, admiring himself in his big mirror after decking himself out in gold and jewels from head to toe.

“That crown you’re wearing looks _very nice_.”

“Oh, boo, you great bully of a lizard,” Daniel scowled, taking off the crown and tossing it to Philip who caught it easily. “I never get anything I want.”

“You know where I’m putting it,” Philip said dismissively as he dug through the other things in the bag. There was nothing as impressive as the necklace or gaudy as the crown, but there was a fairly shiny cup he was rather fond of. “If you like it so much you can just get it from there.”

“You get all moody and growly whenever I touch your hoard,” Daniel complained.

“That was _one_ time about three months after you showed up. You’re lucky I didn’t just eat you.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “You know, you say that all the time, but I actually have a hard time believing it. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have the guts.” Philip snarled and Daniel felt the room grow much warmer as he was suddenly and vividly reminded just who his best friend was. Yes, he and Philip had grown very close over the year they’d been together, but he was still a dragon and a mean one at that. He might not want to hurt Daniel at this moment, but with little to no warning he could change his mind and Daniel could find himself back at the mercy of the world at best or a soot stain at worst. He quickly changed the subject. “We should go out tomorrow.”

Philip cocked his head curiously. “Why should we? We literally just robbed them; I doubt they’re going to have much unless you’re saying you did a bad job.”

“Of course, I did a great job. What kind of elf do you take me for?” Daniel scoffed. “I meant going into Bricstow to buy and sell things. Are you aware of the fact that we’re out of food?”

“Considering I don’t eat the food you do, I was completely unaware,” Phil said. “I don’t know why you don’t just go foraging or something while I hunt.”

Daniel huffed. “Because I had to forage and steal food for the first forty years of my life and while I have the money to eat like a king I’m going to do just that.”

Philip yawned, he could almost feel the first rays of sunlight peeking over the hills. “Alright, fine, we’ll go to Bricstow, but not until the day after tomorrow. We’ll have to be out during the day and you get whiney if you don’t have enough rest.” Ignoring Daniel’s offended protests, he transformed back into his full dragon self and took his new treasures to his room. His hoard wasn’t astonishingly large by any means, but it was big enough and only held the very best so it made Philip happy and that was all that mattered.

With a deep rumble Daniel would call a yawn, he curled up in and around his hoard, waiting for sleep to wash over him. However, before it could, he felt a small, warm body worm its way under his wing to rest in the (relatively) soft fold where his front leg met his torso.

**And what do you think you’re doing in here?**

**Oh, like you don’t know. You know I meditate better when I know you’re there.**

Philip snorted and rolled his eyes, but he ever so slightly brought his wing in a little closer to his body in a protective manner to shield the prone body beneath it. Much as he loathed to admit it even to himself, much less to anyone else, Daniel truly was his favourite addition to his hoard and he planned to keep it that way.

_______________

“Move your lazy arse,” Daniel growled, fruitlessly shoving his whole weight against a fully grown dragon like he legitimately thought that would make the slightest bit of difference.

Philip snorted. **Yes, I’m the lazy one. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m flying two hours to take a skinny little elf on a shopping trip I have absolutely no interest in because he doesn’t want to just make the journey on foot.**

“Name one half sane person who would make a six-hour walk when he can fly instead,” Daniel argued. “Now, come _on_. We’re burning daylight and I hate being up and about at this hour.”

Philip let out a rumble from deep within his chest to show his unhappiness but heaved himself to his feet, much to Daniel’s delight. He took his time stretching his neck, his wings, and all four of his legs while Daniel stood to the side tapping his foot impatiently. When he was done he blinked at Daniel to let him know it was time to go.

Grumbling the whole way, the dark elf clambered his way up and when he was settled he flipped up the hood of his cloak to protect from the sun. “Let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”

With that, Philip weaved his body back and forth like a snake for a moment as if getting used to the way it moved before suddenly darting forward through the mouth of the cave and diving down the sheer cliff face towards the sea below. Right before they crashed into the water, he unfurled his great wings and let the ocean wind lift him up to his cruising altitude before he began to slowly flap.

It was a beautiful, perfectly clear day, and under normal circumstances, Daniel would have been absolutely tickled pink and looking around to see everything possible, but as it was daylight he couldn’t do that. Instead, he was huddled up under his thickest cloak, trying his best to both stay cool and keep as much sun as possible off his sensitive skin. He was fine - albeit uncomfortable - when he was out in the sun so long as he had at least partial shade, but when they were flying there was nothing to protect him, so all he could do was suffer through. Philip would never admit it, but it greatly concerned him to see his friend in such distress and he almost subconsciously started flying ever so slightly faster.

Bricstow was the perfect city for Daniel and Philip to sell the treasures they decided not to keep. It wasn’t by any means the largest city around, but it was big enough that it garnered a rather large market full of merchants who had learned not to ask too many questions, and it was only about twenty miles away from their cave and through some very dense forest which made traveling there and back in a day easy for them, but rather more difficult for anyone who decided to follow them. There was also a very convenient meadow not too far out of town where they could land out of view of prying eyes, which, after nearly two hours of unfortunately silent flight, Philip was hovering over as he looked for the ideal place to touch down.

“Thank fuck,” Daniel sighed as soon as he was on the ground and in the shade of some trees. “I hate flying during the day.”

“You and me both,” said Philip, who had transformed into his humanoid shape. “Now come on, let’s go get your stuff.”

Together they made their way into town, Philip garnering several terrified glances that he absolutely revelled in. Daniel rolled his eyes and tugged him along to his favourite stall, run by a Kenku by the name of Bofraran. Like most of his birdman people, he was far too interested in gold to ask questions and usually _forgot_ to wonder how an allegedly homeless drow came across the items Daniel had for sale. He underpaid for most of the things he acquired, but all of his deals came with an unspoken vow of silence that he wasn’t about to break anytime soon.

“Ah, Daniel!” he crooned as soon as they stepped in. “It’s been quite a while since I last saw you, how have you been? Did you come to visit your old friend?”

“Cut the bullshit, Bofaran,” Daniel said narrowing his eyes. “You and I both know why we’re here so stop wasting time.”

Bofaran merely shrugged his feathered shoulders. “Nobody ever wants to just talk these days. It’s always rush rush rush with you folk. No manners. Now, let’s see what we have here.” He peered into the bag and pulled out a few items to inspect closer. There was one ring that he seemed particularly keen on as he started chattering delightedly after looking at it for a moment. “Why, Daniel, you always do bring me the _prettiest_ things.”

“We keep the prettiest,” Philip corrected him flatly, perusing the wares set out with disinterest.

Bofaran clicked his beak together in agitation for a moment at Philip’s tone but soon turned back to Daniel, returning to his oily business tone. “I’ll give you one thousand gold pieces for the bag.”

Daniel actually laughed out loud for a moment. “Try again, Bof. That ring in your hand is worth more than a thousand. Aim a bit higher this time.”

Bofaran narrowed his beady black eyes. “One and a half.”

“Three.”

“One and three quarters.”

“Two and a half.”

“Two.”

Daniel pursed his lips and snatched the ring from Bofraran’s talons. “Maybe you didn’t hear me; I’ll repeat myself. Two. And a. _Half_. Take the deal or we walk birdman.”

Bofaran clicked his beak together a bit more, staring longingly at the ring Daniel was rolling through his fingers. After a moment, he sighed and pulled out his chest and started counting out tiny bags of gold. “Deal. Two thousand five hundred gold. It’s more than I’d pay for just about anything but that ring will more than bring it back and I’m fairly certain between you and your dragon friend I don’t stand a chance.”

Daniel grinned wolfishly and swept the money into his bag with one arm. “Pleasure doing business with you, Bofaran. It’s always good to see old friends.”

Bofran ruffled up his feathers beneath his baggy robes. “You would say that after you’ve robbed me blind. Now, go. Get out before I get it in my mind to call the guards.”

Daniel laughed right in the unhappy kenku’s face. “Right, yeah. _You’ll_ call the guards. Will that be before or after you stash away the illegal scrolls and magic weapons?”

“ _Out_!”

Still cackling, Daniel grabbed Philip’s arm and dragged them outside. “Come on, it’s food time. I think I saw someone up here selling foods from the Underdark.”

As expected, a few stalls down there was an old, pretty High Elf woman named Sisar selling all manner of Drow delicacies along with her usual wares. As usual, Philip found most of what Daniel loaded into his bag distasteful, but he did wind up picking out some forest strider drumsticks and some delightfully pungent goat sausage for their meal in town. With their newly bought food, they managed to find a secluded area where they could eat without being disturbed or leaving town.

“You’re not going to like that,” Philip said breezily, sinking his fangs into his drumstick after giving it a quick charbroil with his flames.

“What are you talking about?” Daniel scowled, looking up from his comically black meal. “I’ll have you know these foods are a cultural delight for my people.”

“You say that every time you manage to find someone selling this stuff,” Philip argued. “And yet, every time you wind up hating at least half of it. I noticed you only got more than one meal’s worth of stuff for about half of what’s on your plate.”

As if trying to prove Philip wrong, Daniel grabbed the egg he had bought (some kind of faerzress infused duck egg, if Phil was remembering correctly) and took about half of it into his mouth in one big bite. He immediately regretted this decision. Philip raised his eyebrow as Daniel’s face seemed to almost turn inside out at the sudden, unbearably salty flavour that flooded his mouth. “Maybe that particular thing isn’t for me,” he squeaked out after fighting to choke it down.

“Well, I’m fairly certain those are supposed to be a soup starter,” Philip laughed. “Come on, now, you know what you do and do not like, just skip to the good stuff.”

“I’ll eat whatever I want!” Daniel snapped. He looked down at the Donigarten Moss Snails he had next up for eating and did his best to swallow down the bile at the back of his throat. “You know what? Maybe I will skip out on this today.”

“Why don’t you tell me about the stuff you do actually like?” Philip suggested, not unkindly.

Daniel beamed. “I have black velvet ear fungus, which are these dark brown things that kind of look like wood shavings; black truffle rothe cheese from Menzoberranzan, which is super savory and creamy and delicious; and I have some blind cave fish caviar, which mostly just taste like salt, but they’re good with the mushrooms.”

Philip nodded and did his best to not look sick to his stomach. “You people are certainly… fond of your heritage as far as food goes.”

“Humans are the worst about it,” Daniel shrugged. “I mean, they have food specific to their race _and_ where they came from and even their specific families. I mean, yeah, there are slight differences from place to place with everyone, but from what I remember pretty much everyone in the Underdark ate basically the same thing.”

Philip hummed, but he was quickly losing interest as he had spotted a very wealthy looking orc lady who was carrying an absolutely stunning tapestry bag over her arm. “Wait here,” he said to Daniel, effortlessly getting to his feet with a short flap of his wings. He smoothly cut his way through the crowd until he was walking right next to his target. “That’s a lovely bag there you have, Miss,” he said, charm dripping off every word. “Might I ask you a bit about it?”

The orc looked positively terrified at the sight of a rather large mouthful of very sharp teeth grinning at her. “I-I bought it not long ago.”

“Any idea who made it?”

“M-Malement,” she stammered. “He’s the-the Dragonborn weaver in Lundy.”

“Oh, it’s a shame we’re in Bricstow, I would _love_ to have a bag like that,” he lamented. Then he smiled again, wider and sharper and more dangerous than before. “Say, you wouldn’t mind giving me _yours_ would you?”

“But I-I had to wait two months for him to finish this one for me!”

“Even better,” he cooed, completely delighted. “Now, why don’t you give that to me and I won’t have to do something we’ll both regret.” The colour quickly drained from her face, and without another word, she shoved her bag into Philip’s waiting hands. “Don’t even think about telling the guards about this, yeah?” She nodded quickly, and as quickly as she could she darted down the street. Philip chuckled to himself as he made his way back to Daniel, closely inspecting his find. It wasn’t quite two months worth of work, but it was perfectly and expertly made and it was rather pretty.

“Find something fun, did you?” Daniel asked, cocking an eyebrow and immediately taking the bag so he could look through it. Much to Philip’s displeasure. “Why was this woman carrying around so much garbage?” he whined, dumping it out. “She has like four gold, but she’s got a jar of… _griffon grease_?”

“Maybe she’s a wizard and these are her spell components,” Philip rationalized, looking at a vial of fingernail clippings in mild disgust.

“The fuck kind of spell needs this horse shit?” Daniel demanded, shaking a bubble pipe at him.

Delighted, Philip dropped the nail vial, grabbed the pipe and started blowing smoke-filled bubbles. “Whatever she had it for doesn’t much matter anymore as it’s ours now. Just take what of it seems remotely valuable and leave the rest.”

Daniel frowned, looking over the pile of stuff, before grabbing a teardrop shaped necklace that appeared to be made of an actual teardrop and left the rest. “Well, again, most of this is worthless and I don’t much fancy being weighed down, do you?”

Philip shrugged and tossed the necklace and pipe back in the bag. “I only really wanted the bag in the first place.”

“Come on, then, I have a few more things I want to get before we head back home.”

Philip grumbled under his breath, but acquiesced, following Daniel around as he purchased all sorts of boring things like chests with locks, silk rope, clothes, ink and parchment, more armour and weapons, lanterns, healing potions and candles. He was honestly convinced the drow was just spending money to spend it at this point, and to make Philip carry heavy things.

“Alright, I think that’s everything,” Daniel announced, checking over his list one more time. “Time to head on out, I guess then.” When Philip didn’t make yet another sarcastic comment, Daniel looked up to see him staring with complete focus at a tent with a modest sign that said “Estelaria: Fortunes Told.” “Oh, you _can’t_ be serious.”

Philip turned and scowled at him. “We came all this way for your trivial things; we’re going in this tent.”

Daniel huffed, and rolled his eyes, but followed Philip inside, leaving their possessions just inside. It was dark and humid within the canvas, and the air was filled with smoke, but the fortuneteller was suspiciously absent. “Well, looks like nobody’s home. If we leave now I promise not to make fun of you the whole way back.”

“There’s someone here,” Philip hissed, looking around eyes narrowed and tail lashing. “I can sense it.”

“Look, can we just-”

“You don’t seem to have much faith in my abilities, Drow.”

Daniel whipped around to see a pretty aasimar woman sat at the previously empty table, her chin resting on her folded hands. Her skin was a warm copper tone and she had a pair of purple stars painted onto her cheeks; however, her most defining features were her bright purple eyes and dark purple hair that looked to have the very stars from the sky woven into it. “My name is Estelaria,” she smiled, offering a gloved hand in greeting. “You’re Daniel and Philip, I presume.”

“How did you know that?” Daniel demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.

Philip rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure between her being able to predict the future and us being wanted criminals it wasn’t too hard to guess.” He turned to Estelaria with a smile and pressed a kiss to her hand. “Never you mind him. You know children these days have no manners.”

She laughed and withdrew her hand while Daniel scowled. “Don’t concern yourself with me; I’ve had more than one doubter come through here.” She grinned and leaned forward to stage whisper conspiratorially, “I haven’t had a doubter leave, though.”

Philip chuckled but Daniel just frowned deeper. “Is that supposed to be endorsing your own abilities or a poorly veiled threat on my life?” He was completely and totally ignored.

“So, what do you charge for a fortune reading?” Philip asked, hands already going towards their coin purse, which Daniel regretted making him carry now.

“Oh, for you two?” Estelaria asked with a knowing smile. “Absolutely nothing.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed further. What kind of person didn’t charge for their services? Even if those services were completely phoney, you should still get some coin from it.

Philip, on the other hand, didn’t seem remotely phased by the refusal. “So, how do you predict the future? Crystal ball, tarot cards, palm reading?”

She beamed at him like she’d been waiting to hear that specific question. “Actually, no. I do things a bit differently.” She then revealed her wand, it was red and ended with her signature purple star, and waved it. Suddenly the room grew pitch black before little spots of light all around burst into existence. “I read the stars.”

Philip seemed delighted with the display as he always was when people performed magic, but Daniel’s skin immediately began to crawl. The darkness that filled the tent was definitely of magic - very powerful magic at that - and even with his Darkvision, he couldn’t see anything not illuminated by the summoned stars. Judging from the power evident in the spells necessary for this he was sure Estelaria could beat him handily, even with Philip’s help, and he didn’t like spending extended periods of time with people he couldn’t handle in a fight.

Estelaria hummed to herself for a moment as she peered at the twinkling lights around her. “You two have been busy, I see,” she said, cocking a brow at them. Philip laughed, producing a small flame that filled his mouth, just to be a showoff. “You aren’t really after monetary things, dragon, which I must say I find a bit odd.”

Philip shrugged. “Every dragon has his own taste.”

“Yes, and it seems yours is more handcrafted, preferably magic,” she noted. She turned to Daniel and smiled. “You, however, are much more direct. Orphaned at a young age and facing prejudice from surface dwellers, you had to fight for every meagre thing you had, and now that you have the means your only drive is gaining as much money as possible and spending it on your slightest whims.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel huffed. “That’s the exact same sob story of pretty much every drow up here. I was just lucky enough to be kidnapped by a picky dragon instead of left to starve on the streets.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Regardless of how many shares your story it is yours. But this is all in the past and matters not, for I am a fortuneteller, not a history book.” Daniel snorted, but she ignored him and instead went back to studying her stars. She was mostly silent for a moment as she wandered around her tent, measuring the stars with her hands and muttering, “No… no, that doesn’t make any sense.”

This went on for a solid few minutes before Philip’s infamous dragon temper wore thin. “What _exactly_ doesn’t make sense?” he snapped.

Estelaria blinked at him for a moment. “There’s only one path written in the stars for the both of you,” she explained. “Not only should there be a separate set of paths for each of you, those sets should have more than one option. I was trained to be read the possible paths and tell you the most likely one and how you could stray from it. This… this is unprecedented, impossible even.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what you have found instead of wasting our time marvelling over the things you can’t?” Daniel suggested snidely.

She sighed and collapsed in her chair, rubbing her temples. With a wave of her wand, the lights disappeared and the darkness faded. “You’re about to face your greatest challenge yet,” she said after another moment. “You will face and triumph over one challenge and you may trick yourself into thinking you’ve won, but you have only just begun. You will face battles you can’t fight in a place you’ve never even dreamed of. You will discover things about yourselves during this challenge that you never knew you never knew. Your pasts are incredibly important and you will learn just how much they have shaped you over the years.”

Daniel and Philip met the other’s gaze for a half second before Philip loudly said, “Well, that was incredibly vague and useless, and I mean even more incredibly vague and useless than I was prepared for, and I was prepared for a lot.” He bent down and scooped up their belongings. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll be taking our leave.”

“Wait!” she shouted after them. “I have one warning for you! One way you can diverge from this path! Whatever you do, don’t take the next heist you hear about.”

“We’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Daniel simpered, already halfway out the door.

When they were back on the road, Philip turned to Daniel, so angry that smoke was furling out of the corners of his mouth. “How _dare_ she waste my time like that?” he snarled. “Future sight is a noble art and for her to claim the title with none of the skill is a slander to the profession.”

“You’re surprisingly butthurt over this,” Daniel chuckled. “I mean, I knew you were the superstitious type, but this seems a little much.”

Philip looked like he was about to snap back a retort when suddenly his face changed to one of curiosity and he cocked his head to get a better sound. When he did begin to speak it was in the shrill, rough voice of a young aarakockra girl. “- I heard there was more gold there than you’d ever dream of having. A magic mirror and everything! The place is empty, too; all for the taking!”

He spoke again, but now with the slow speech of a Goliath. “Yes, but how many people must die before the place is marked for what it is - a cursed trap for any and all adventurers.”

This time a male goblin used his voice to say, “Oh, do you really believe all that nonsense? The only thing cursed about that place is your own perception of it.”

“You can’t disagree with facts,” the goliath argued. “And the fact is that too many people have died going after this. I won’t be another.”

“Well, you are replaceable,” the aarakockara pointed out.

“You’d leave me behind, Resa?” the goliath asked sounding hurt.

“Yes, we can and we will,” the goblin snapped. “Now, are you coming with us to Eadhelmsbrigge or not?”

“I still think it’s a bad idea but-” Philip stopped channelling their conversation as soon as he realized there was no more information to be had. “I know what castle they’re talking about,” he said smugly.

“You’re joking,” Daniel grinned. “Why haven’t you said something before now then?”

“I didn’t know exactly where it was,” Philip explained. “I knew there was an old castle in the east of Umbria that was full of treasure and allegedly cursed, but I didn’t know which one exactly it was. If they’re going to Eadhelmsbrigge, though, there’s only one castle there and that’s Waldorf castle.”

“How far away is it?”

“About a day and a half’s flight.”

“Think we can beat them there?”

Philip smirked. “You know we can.”

_______________

“You know, considering we’re supposed to be going off on an adventure, you sure are making this _incredibly_ boring,” Daniel groaned, flopping dramatically over his favourite lounge chair.

Philip growled at him. “Well, if I didn’t have a needy little flesh bag tagging along I would have left by now; instead I’m stuck here making sure he has everything he needs while he lazes about and bitches at me.”

Daniel snorted and rolled off the couch, not taking a word the irritated dragon said to heart. “Look, it’s just going to be five nights we’re gone. Two to travel there, one to steal everything we can carry, and two to get back. Easy. I don’t need you to pack everything I’ve ever owned. Look, I’ve got a pre-packed bag of basically everything I could possibly need.”

“And just what do you have in there?” Philip huffed, narrowing his eyes.

Daniel scoffed but started digging through his bag at Philip’s behest. “Uh, let’s see, I’ve got a shitload of ball bearings-”

“Why the hell would you need _that_?”

Daniel shrugged. “I dunno, setting off traps? Tripping people who might be following you? I’ve used them loads. Do you want to know what else is in here or not?”

Philip pursed his lips. “I’m almost scared to find out, but, yes, I do.”

Daniel grinned and began to list off the things he dug out which included his lock-picking tools, a tightly wound ball of string, a bell, candles, hammer and pitons, and a thick coil of hempen rope. “All I really need is water, food and a couple medicine packs,” he said, listing them off on his fingers.

“What about all your bedding and clothes?” Philip argued.

Daniel wrinkled his nose. “Okay, a change of clothes would probably be ideal, but I definitely don’t need blankets or anything. It’s the middle of summer and I sleep on you all the time anyway. Anything else is just taking up room.”

Philip frowned as Daniel went about gathering up all the rations he’d need for the trip. “If you’re sure. I just feel like there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”

Daniel snorted. “I swear to Lolth if you’re going to bring up that worthless fortune teller from yesterday I will leave and never come back.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on mentioning her, but with that kind of offer how can I refuse?”

“Fuck right off.”

“I am completely serious, though,” Philip insisted. “Something big is about to happen and I’m not sure we’ll know what to do when it does.”

Daniel sighed and stood up to look Philip in the eye. “Look, everything is going to be fine. You’re just on edge because you’re superstitious as hell and believe every story of castles being cursed ever. You know what’s going to happen? We’re going to get there and because we’re damn good at what we do - far better than most - we’re going to take care of all the traps, fight any monsters we have to and get rich. It’s going to be great and you’re going to have a cool ass mirror for your hoard.”

Philip rolled his eyes, but morphed back into his dragon form and let Daniel load their things onto his back. When he was done they set off, fortunately under the cool cover of night this time. As it was night there were few people awake and outside to see them and even fewer who could actually make out Philip’s dark form blotting out the stars as they soared overhead. Much to Daniel’s dismay, Philip kept the course straight and true, not dilly-dallying to do his usual flips and tricks. They weren’t in a race against time by any stretch of the imagination, but they did have a schedule to keep and he didn’t see much point in wasting time or energy on unnecessary aerial acrobatics.

This left Daniel rather bored during the two hour flights between breaks and after counting his bag of ball bearings for the fifth time (he had 916 every time he counted) he decided to inflict his misery on Philip. **So, tell me more about this allegedly haunted castle we’re about to rob** he thought casually. He laid back and made a game of trying to keep his eyes on a single star as the soared past them. The sun was just beginning to make its presence known and the sky was now a couple shades lighter than the inky blue it’d been all night. Fortunately, this meant they were going to be landing probably within the hour; unfortunately, this meant that the stars were even harder to stare at which drastically increased the level of Daniel’s game.

 **Well, I already told you that it’s Waldorf Castle** , Philip explained. **A couple hundred years back it was owned by the Waldorf family and the daughter married the king, leaving the parents alone in the castle as they had no other children. The story goes that they were really shitty to their servants, so one day the servants all gathered together, stuffed their pockets with as much gold they could carry, and just left. The lord and lady had absolutely no power to punish the servants into coming back, and they were too proud to change their behaviour, so eventually, they wound up dying right there in the castle because they didn’t know how to feed themselves.**

 **Serves them right** Daniel snorted. **Probably had a loaded pantry and everything, the problem was just between their ears. Imagine starving to death in a castle because you’re too foolish to eat while there are actual people just outside your door starving because you won’t give them food.**

 **It’s just the story** Philip shrugged. **There’s probably another answer, but I haven’t found one nearly entertaining enough to replace that one.**

Daniel snickered for a moment before asking **So, what’s the treasure inside like? Surely it’s a spectacle to behold.**

**Mostly just the normal things you’d find in a castle: Clothes, jewels, gold, and the like. The most interesting thing is the magic mirror the lady allegedly has. Nobody’s quite sure what it does, now or then. It’s got no functionality other than a normal mirror, but it’s got such a magical aura that even non-magic users like you would be able to feel it.**

**What good does that do anybody?**

**None, but there have been years of research put into discovering its use, and if I get it that time belongs to me.**

**So, tell me more about this curse then.**

Philip rolled his eyes and snorted, sending a trail of smoke whizzing above Daniel who was glad he wasn’t sat back up. **There’s no curse. Yes, a dozen or so parties have tried to get in and failed but that’s no reason to assume it’s cursed. Worst case scenario is that another dragon has taken it as their lair-**

**We could have has a _castle_ for a lair?!**

**I could have taken a castle, but I didn’t because caves are more like where I grew up, and they’re easier to hide and protect. Anyway, it could be a dragon, but I haven’t heard anything and if they’re this close to my territory they should have come to see me by now. If it is a dragon it’s a young one, probably just out of the wyrmling stage and after its first lair.**

**Alright then, no dragons who would actually pose a threat. Got it. Will there at least be traps for me to set off?**

**Most likely.**

**Cool. I hope we come across a ghost. I’d love to fight a ghost.**

**Not really, you wouldn’t.**

**And why not?**

**You only have physical weapons. How well do you think punching a ghost is going to go?**

**You ruin all my fun.**

Philip rumbled out a deep laugh from within his belly but said nothing. Instead, after spying a nice clear meadow surrounded by trees for them to camp under, he started to gently dive towards the ground. Once he was on the ground and unloaded, he transformed back to his humanoid shape grinned smugly. “I bet you’re glad I insisted we take those bedrolls now.”

“Well, you were supposed to be a great bloody lizard for me to rest on!”

“That form would have been way more conspicuous,” Philip argued. “Now, help me set up camp.”

Together they managed to set up a crude, easily dismantled shelter for the day and ate their meal. Finally, Philip collapsed across the pile of bedrolls they had set out (he didn’t quite grasp how they worked, but he was happy with his mini bedding hoard) and fell asleep immediately. Daniel joined him after making sure everything was picked up, and just as the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon his eyes slipped closed.

After a few hours of meditation, Daniel looked around and realized that there was absolutely nothing to do, so he closed his eyes again and attempted to sleep. As elves lacked the biological need to sleep, their sleep was different - generally lighter and more fitful - from other creatures, and this was particularly true for Drow who tried to sleep anywhere but the calming darkness of a cave. Thankfully, this quirk was actually far more helpful than detrimental for Daniel this time around.

“Philip, wake _up_ ,” he hissed, elbowing his sleeping friend in the side. Philip quickly startled awake with a slurred, “Wassamatter?” to which Daniel replied, “I think somebody found us.”

Philip yawned widely but silenced himself to better hear his surroundings. Everything was quiet for a moment and he was about to tell Daniel to go back to sleep when the sharp crack of a stick breaking jolted him into full alert mode. With a snarl, he rose to his feet, and before he was even stable he fell forwards onto all four dragon legs, his tail lashing back and forth angrily.

“Who’s there?” Daniel called out to the seemingly empty woods, grasping the handle of his short sword. “We know you’re there, and maybe if you come out we won’t hurt you.” Philip snorted at this so Daniel corrected himself. “Okay, we won’t _kill_ you.”

“Oh, we’re not too concerned about you killing us.” Daniel whipped his head around to see a clever looking goblin emerging from the trees and running his fingers over the blade of a scimitar. Behind him, a Goliath and a young aarakocra followed carrying a greatclub and a light hammer. Daniel quickly thought back to the previous day and realized with a groan that these were the people they had overheard. The goblin smirked at the sudden realization on Daniel’s face. “Oh, you _do_ remember us. Yes, we knew you were listening, because I just so happen to have a little device that tells me when unscrupulous people are prying.”

“Look, we don’t mean you any harm-”

“You mean to take our treasure!” the aarakocra interrupted, her voice just as high and sharp from her own beak as it had been from Philip’s. “That’s just as bad!”

“Hush, Resa,” the goliath soothed. “Deyoram and I will handle this.”

The goblin nodded. “Yes, we’ll handle this. Now, if the two of you don’t mind, I’d quite like to see the tail of this one-” he gestured to Philip, “-soaring through the air as the two of you make your way home.”

Philip growled, the sound rumbling in his chest and Daniel smirked. “Well, then it looks like we’ll just have to settle this the old-fashioned way.”

Before anyone else could even think of reacting, the aarakocra raised a taloned hand in the air and three glowing darts flew straight from her palm and into Philip’s side. The dragon scoffed at the weak attempt at harming him and breathed a cone of fire at the three challengers. The aarakocra flapped her wings quickly and only caught the very edge of the attack, but the goliath and goblin didn’t react quickly enough and were surrounded in flames. As soon as the flames subsided, the goblin let out a ferocious cry and rushed Daniel with his scimitar. However, Daniel nimbly stepped out of the way and brought his own sword down in a vicious slash. The goblin cried out in pain and Daniel was about to make another attack, but was buffeted away with a swing of the goliath’s club.

From her position in the air, the aarakocra levelled her crossbow at Philip and let off a shot, which bounced off his thick hide. He returned attack with his claws, attempting to slash her out of the air. After a few missed swipes, Philip caught her with one of his claws and sent her hurtling straight into the ground. After taking a moment to make sure she was still breathing, the goblin growled and slashed his sword at Daniel again. This time the attack caught him right across his belly, sending him stumbling back with a cry of pain. Gritting his teeth, he attacked, smirking when he felt his sword pierce right through a chink in the goblin’s armour. His victory was short lasted, however, because at that very moment the goliath attacked again with a harsh blow across the back of his head.

The aarakocra groaned and with what remained of her energy she cast another spell that created a cloud of daggers that floated and spun about like a swarm of bees. Daniel would have honestly been very impressed if he weren’t too busy being slashed by a hundred knives all at once. Philip had apparently grown tired of the fight because he reared back and shot another cone of fire at their attackers.

When the smoke and fire cleared all three of them were very still and covered in a good amount of soot and none of them were moving, not even when Daniel nudged them with his foot. Smirking he sauntered over to the goblin and rooted around in his pockets until he came across a shiny silver acorn about the size of a date. He quickly pocketed the item, knowing that’s what had tipped their rivals off to the presence of listening ears; this would definitely come in handy.

“Do they have anything good?” Philip asked, once again on two legs.

“Not that I’ve seen,” Daniel admitted as Philip went about searching the bodies. “I found the goblin’s listening device, but you can’t have it for your hoard.”

Philip wrinkled his nose. “Don’t think I’d want it anyways. It may be magical, but those things are fairly common as far as artefacts go.” He also took a moment to nudge the goliath, frowning when they didn’t respond at all. “Did we… did we kill them?”

Daniel frowned and went over to the aarakocra and held his dagger just below her beak. He waited with bated breath for a moment until a tiny cloud of condensation formed on the blade. “Well, the magic user is still alive, and pretty much every magic user at least has access to a healing spell so once she wakes up I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he reasoned, standing and sheathing his weapon. Philip looked almost a little disappointed that he hadn’t managed to actually kill anyone, but Daniel was relieved. He’d manage to live 124 years without killing anyone himself (he’d definitely had a hand in more than a few deaths, but he wasn’t present for them so they didn’t count) and he wasn’t too interested in ending that streak.

“Well, come on, then,” Philip yawned. As usual, as soon as the threat was gone he’d gone right back to his lazy sleepy state. “We’ve got a few more hours of daylight before we can actually get anywhere, and I don’t want to be even close to these fools when they wake up.”

Daniel grunted his agreement and started helping Philip break down their small camp before they set off on foot, making sure to stay in the shade of the trees. If they just so happened to forget a few healing potions then that was their business. By the time the sun had properly set they had made it to a nice open field great for takeoffs and had eaten their fill for their pre-flight meal. Fortunately, they had made it almost two-thirds of the way to the castle the previous night, and after only a half night of flight, they made it to the surrounding forrest. They spent an hour or so setting up a much sturdier camp than they’d had the previous night, then had a good meal. They were just getting comfortable when the first rays of dawn started shining over them.

“So, what all do you think we need to prepare for?” Daniel asked suddenly. “I mean, I know there’s going to be some traps but do you have any idea what kind? You know more about this place than I do.”

Philip huffed, thinking for a moment. “Well, there’s not a dragon in there, that’s for damn sure,” he said eventually. “It’s a lot smaller than most castles, so I don’t think there’s going to be anything too big in there.”

“Will you be able to get in there in your obnoxious lizard form or will you be stuck like this?” Daniel demanded, suddenly a bit more concerned. As a dragon, Philip could take on pretty much anything with no effort, but in his humanoid shape, all of his attacks were much weaker.

Philip shifted uncomfortably, tail lashing back and forth; he was just as - if not more so - uncomfortable as Daniel about fighting like this. “I’m afraid I’ll have to stay like this. If I go in there huge there’s a good chance I’ll wind up knocking in the walls and collapsing the whole thing right down on top of us.”

“Well, that makes things significantly harder,” Daniel frowned. “But you’re right, if you can’t fit in there then likely nothing else will either. Besides, we’ve faced worse challenges before; remember that time you managed to get arrested when we went to Lundy? They put you in adamantine chains and everything.”

“I think you wound up breaking three lockpicks trying to get me out,” Philip chuckled.

“I like to imagine I’ve gotten better at lockpicking by now,” Daniel grinned.

“Oh, what about that time you got kidnapped by mermaids?” Philip recalled fondly.

“That was awful!” Daniel pouted. “My potion was wearing off and I don’t think we even managed to get any treasure from that.”

“I dunno, you came away from it with a nice case of pneumonia.”

“You’re the worst!” Daniel whined. “Now, lay down so I can lay on you. I’m so exhausted I think I may actually sleep for a bit.”

Philip cocked a brow, knowing it was unusual for an elf to be so tired they craved actual sleep. Their fight from earlier must have taken more out of him than either of them realized. However, he didn’t say anything, just turned into his dragon form to enjoy the last few hours he had before he was crammed into his smaller form and stuck in a tiny castle for who knows how long. As he settled, curled up in and around himself, he made sure there was an elf-sized pocket of space, and as expected it didn’t stay empty for long.

 **Good morning, Daniel** he thought lazily as he quickly drifted off to sleep.

**Good morning, Philip.**

_________

Waking up from a sleep his body actually needed would never stop being a weird sensation for Daniel. When he was just meditating he was very quick to come to his senses when he was done and always felt refreshed and reenergized, but when he woke up from a deep sleep it was like he was moving and seeing the world through a big vat of honey and he somehow always felt more tired than when he went to sleep. The one and the only reason he ever did it, other than light catnaps meant to waste time, was because he knew that the energy he got from sleep would last him longer and make him more alert whenever he was back to full functionality.

Another odd thing was waking up alone when he knew for a fact that he fell asleep surrounded by a dragon. In fact, said dragon was back in his humanoid form checking _once again_ that they had everything they’d need. “Oh, good, you’re up,” he muttered, recoiling the rope in his hands. “You know, for a creature that doesn’t generally require sleep you sure do sleep for a long time. Do you think we should bring torches and or candles?”

Daniel graciously chose to ignore the comment about his sleeping and instead went about eating the breakfast that had been left out for him. “I don’t think so. I mean, the both of us have Darkvision, plus you have Blindvision and you can breathe fire.”

“What if for whatever reason we get separated and you need to light a fire or something?” Philip argued.

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Fine, we’ll take a few torches, but I’m only carrying one. You have to carry the rest.”

Philip scowled, but conceded. “Alright then. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“Neither of us is getting any younger,” Daniel shrugged, swallowing the last chunk of bread. He shouldered his bag (which was considered the lighter of the two) and led the way into the woods with a jaunty skip in his step. He hadn’t really done much delving into dungeons in his career as a thief; when he was younger he was much more interested in getting food to survive and when he joined up with Philip he just found that he preferred the challenge of stealing from the living. Philip had done more than his fair share of dungeoneering in his time and had an active distaste for it, but they generally had treasure that even he couldn’t ignore, plus Daniel always got a kick out of a new adventure.

Fortunately, Philip had managed to land a very short, uneventful walk from the castle, and Daniel waltzed right up to the door and yanked as hard as he could on the handle.

It didn’t budge.

Daniel coughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to hide the rosy blush colouring his normally purple-grey cheeks. “I, uh, I think it’s locked.”

Philip laughed and stepped forward, taking a door in each hand and effortlessly drawing them open. “You loosened it up for me,” he smirked, stepping inside.

Daniel followed close behind, still pink-cheeked and muttering something about being a nasty showoff. Inside the castle was almost pure darkness and as he blinked to better adjust his eyes he thought for a half second about lighting a torch before his pride got the better of him.

Fortunately, Philip took matters into his own hands. “Tiamet, it’s dark in here,” he swore, squinting. “Can’t you do some kind of magic that makes light? I haven’t been somewhere this dark in at least a century.”

Daniel flushed lightly. Yes, all Drow children were capable of and taught how to perform the cantrip Dancing Lights, but he had never been much good at it, and his lights were always dimmer than those of his peer’s. It was a bit of a sore spot to this day. “I’m not sure how much help it will be,” he mumbled, deliberately looking anywhere but at his friend. “Besides, it’s still light enough to see. When it’s so dark I’m blind we’ll talk about using it.”

Sensing Daniel’s reluctance to continue down that line of conversation, Philip charged deeper into the room. The entrance hall was grand with impressive wooden doors on all three side and a pair of grand staircases curving up to the second-floor landing. If he had to guess, at least one of them led to the grand hall and another to an entertainment room and the last to the kitchens. He turned to Daniel and said, “Left, right or centre?”

Daniel puzzled over his choices for a moment, wrinkling his nose before finally saying, “Left.”

They made their way into the room and Philip was delighted to see that he was correct in thinking this was the sitting room. Well, in its prime it had probably been a sitting room, but now it was devoid of anything other than a nearly shredded rug, a couple ugly paintings depicting the previous owners and a nice sized fireplace to keep the inhabitants warm during winter. Apparently, whatever curse was on this place wasn’t good enough to keep thieves out of this room.

He pointed out his observations to Daniel who just snorted. “Come on, this room is a waste of time. Let’s get on with the show.” He led the way on through the door to the next room which appeared to be a smaller dining area, probably for meetings and such. Things continued to be unproductive throughout the following rooms of the great hall and the kitchen, but when they made it to the larder, Daniel found something rather interesting.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, throwing himself to the ground and digging under one of the shelves. A moment later he sat up with a delighted expression and a jar clutched containing what looked to be an orange sugar crystal in his hands. “This is mephit honey! This stuff is super hard to come by.”

Philip frowned; he, of course, knew about mephits - the impish little elementals that served no other purpose than to be a nuisance - but he had never heard of them making honey. Humanoids were so strange sometimes. “Surely it’s gone off by now. This place has been abandoned for almost two hundred years.”

Daniel gleefully shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong! For whatever reason, this stuff _never_ goes bad; I should know, I carried around a jar for years when I was on the run to have as a treat. Right now you would have a hard time eating it because it’s sugared over, but we can melt it and you’ll understand.”

Philip narrowed his eyes suspiciously but took the jar being thrust at him. “And you want me to…?”

“Breathe fire on it? Yes, definitely.”

Still not one hundred percent convinced but still trusting, Philip produced a small flame that licked up and around the jar which he was slowly turning. As if by magic, Philip watched as the crystal inside began to melt until it turned back into liquid. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Daniel beamed. The jar was still very hot so he left it in Philip’s heatproof claws, allowing him to get a better look at it. To be perfectly honest, it looked and seemed to act like normal honey, but it somehow looked… alive. It was a much more orange and red colour as opposed to gold and with the way the light shifted in and around it seemed to glow and swirl around all on its own. “I think this one is from a magma mephit,” Daniel explained. “That usually has a spicier orange taste. It’s still sweet and hard like all mephit honey but it’s got different stuff in it. I had a jar of ice mephit honey and it was kind of minty and bitter.”

“Do you want to have some now?”

Daniel bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know, shouldn’t we be getting this thing done with?”

Philip rolled his eyes and started digging around in his bag for a spoon. “It’s not like we’re on a schedule or something and it’s not like this has to take all night. Have some damn honey.”

Daniel grinned and took the spoonful of honey when it was offered to him and popped it right in his mouth. As predicted, it was sharp and spicy like peppers but had a sour sweetness like oranges. Somehow, it even managed to make his belly and chest feel warm as it went down and he was suddenly assaulted with highly romanticized memories of his time spent wandering the Underdark. “Fuck, you need to try this _now_ ,” he moaned, shoving the spoon back to Philip.

Philip chuckled, obviously doubting the endorsement, but as soon as his lips closed around the handle of the spoon his eyes shot open. “Mother of mountains, that’s good,” he mumbled around the spoon still in his mouth, looking like he’d just had a religious experience.

Daniel laughed and took the jar back, ignoring the quiet growl he received. “Come on then. This castle won’t explore itself.”

“Well, we’ve done about all we can down here,” Philip said. “Upstairs it is.”

They made their way back out to the grand entryway and up the stairs. Standing tall and proud at the top were a pair of plate armour suits both holding matching longswords. “I wonder why these haven’t been taken,” Daniel muttered as he investigated the armour.

“Maybe they just assumed they’d get better stuff later,” Philip shrugged. “I mean it’s nice armour and all, but unless you suddenly needed armour I don’t see why you’d want it.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed easily, deciding it was time they moved on.

However, the castle apparently the castle had decided it wasn’t time to move on. As soon as they stepped off the balcony to investigate there was a loud creaking as a quiet whistle and they both turned around. The armour had suddenly sprung to life and was swaying back and forth like it was being worn by someone made of porridge while the swords were up in the air slashing about as easily as when a master swordsman held them.

Daniel grinned at Philip and pulled out his shortsword. “Honestly I’m rather glad something has happened on this trip. It was getting dull.” Without waiting for a response he quickly lunged forward to attack the suit of armour nearest to him but completely missed. “Um… whoops?”

Philip rolled his eyes and swiped at a sword with his claws. The hit landed perfectly and sent it spinning through the air to hit the other sword which didn’t much appreciate getting hit and flew back with a wide slash that Philip was lucky enough to block with the thick hide of his tail.

As if it was only just now understanding what was happening, the suit of armour Daniel had attacked slammed its entire weight against him, sending the drow sprawling to the floor with the wind knocked from his lungs. Following the attack, the sword Philip hit slashed down at him as well, making him cry out.

At the sound of Daniel’s distress, Philip glanced over which gave the second suit of armour a chance to attack. The first time it threw itself against him he was able to keep standing, but it attacked again and this time he was sent stumbling back. Fortunately, as it was about to attack for the third time, Daniel swooped in and smacked it away with the flat of his sword and it collapsed in a heap.

Philip growled under his breath, growing tired of this fight. Noticing that the remaining suit of armour and the two swords were conveniently right next to one another, he sucked in a deep breath and let out a blisteringly hot cone of flames. When the flames died down, the only things left indicating there had been anything there in the first place were a few charred - mostly beyond recognition - piles of metal. Philip smirked, pleased with his work. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

Daniel crossed his arms and pouted but followed along. “You _always_ manage to get the final hit in with your dumb fire breath,” he whined.

“Benefits of adventuring with a dragon, I suppose,” Philip mused, wandering towards the left.

The first room they came across was bare save for the giant bed frame dominating the space. Assuming it had at one point been a bedroom, Daniel frowned, noticing something was off. “Philip, we’re pointed north, yeah?”

There was a grunt of agreement as he dug through a mostly empty trunk.

“People usually put windows on the north wall to keep cool in summer, yeah?”

Another grunt.

“Then why haven’t we seen a single god damn window in this place?”

Philip suddenly looked up, what once had been a fine silk scarf in one hand. “What did you say?”

Daniel gestured at the wall before them which was flat stone and nothing else. “There haven’t been any windows on this place at all. The great hall, kitchen, hell there wasn’t even one in the larder.”

“That… is odd, yes,” Philip admitted slowly. He stepped forward and placed an ear to the wall, rapping on it slightly. “It’s empty on the other side.”

“Well, if it’s leading out to the woods, yeah, it’s empty.”

“No, there’s definitely a room on the other side,” Philip argued. “The stone is warmer than it would be if it lead straight outside.”

“Is it a servant’s passage?” Daniel guessed.

Philip frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Look at the corners of the room. I don’t think this wall was put in by professionals.”

“Do you think it’s part of the traps this place is known for? Because other than that armour there haven’t been many traps.”

“Could be,” Philip shrugged. “Could be nothing. We’ll have to find the entrance to know for sure.”

Daniel hummed in agreement, shoving a nice enough looking gold candlestick in his bag. They left that room and continued on to the next room, whose door looked much more imposing and regal. “Lord and lady’s room?” he guessed. He reached out to turn the knob, but it refused to budge. “Oh, yeah?” he muttered, crouching down and pulling out his lock picking kit. “You want to keep _me_ out? We’ll see about that.” He fiddled about with the long delicate tools before he heard the ever-satisfying _click_ of a lock being opened. However, as he was about to pull the tools out there came the dreaded _clunk_ of a lock being fastened and the near-silent _snap_ of his tools breaking cleanly in half.

Everything was silent for a moment before Philip said, “Well, that was unexpected.”

Daniel scowled up at him as he gathered his remaining tools. “Oh, really? I would never have guessed. Next, you’ll be telling me that you spit fire during battles or something.”

Philip snarled, but Daniel just narrowed his eyes further, completely unintimidated. “Sulking like this will solve nothing,” he said instead. “It’s obviously got some kind of enchantment on it that keeps the lock from being opened. Now, if there’s a magic lock, there must be some kind of magic key we can find.”

Daniel sighed deeply but grudgingly agreed. The rooms to the left were much the same as the first one they came across, empty save for a few trinkets they took for themselves. Philip found a glass ball full of smoke that swirled around, a golden whistle and an odd stone block that was somehow weightless. Daniel came away with a shard of obsidian that burned his hand when he held it, a set of bone pipes, a solid silver skull about the size of a coin and a multi-coloured stone disk. He planned on selling the skull and pipes in town, but Philip said the obsidian and disk were charged with spells he could potentially use in battle.

They made it back around to the right half of the floor and found a room that appeared to have a second room attached to it. Daniel went to open it until there was a loud grunt and the sound of something very big sitting down on something very small. He turned back to Philip a bit pale-faced and shook his head.

“You don’t want to go investigate it?” Philip hissed quietly.

“Not particularly, no,” Daniel squeaked, quickly shuffling towards the door. “You can go in and have fun getting the shit kicked out of you by whatever is in there, but I’m going to be not here.”

Philip rolled his eyes but he, too, saw the error in picking a fight they didn’t exactly need to be in. They both made their way back into the hall and up the flight of stairs conveniently right next to where they were. The highest floor of the castle also appeared to be the bleakest . While it was true that the other two floors showed definite signs of wear and theft, they also had a distinct feeling that they at least used to be elegant with the ornate rugs and furniture and paintings. This floor, however, was completely stone from what Philip could see and had never been anything but the bare essentials. “I think we found the servants’ quarters.”

“Yeah,” Daniel murmured back, wandering up the main hall of the floor. When he got to two doors, one on either side of the hall, he opened the right and walked into what used to be the servants’ sleeping chambers, complete with a chest of belongings. “Philip, come here! I think I’ve found something!”

Philip came as he was called, but unfortunately, Daniel’s call hadn’t only alerted him. From the beds appeared a sleepy looking, but very large bugbear. When they finished blinking the sleep from their eyes, they focused on Daniel and Philip and let out a shout of alarm.

Philip leapt into action, hitting the creature in the stomach with his tail, cutting their cry for help off in a gurgle. Daniel quickly pounced on the winded bugbear, both daggers out and stabbed them right in the chinks of the armour. The bugbear roared in pain before bringing the morning star in their hands straight down on Daniel’s back twice. The first hit landed painfully, but Daniel managed to drop down to the floor and dodge out of the way of the second attack so it instead landed on the bugbear.

While they tussled Philip took an opportunity to morph his mouth into a much more dragon shape, which he then snapped down on the bugbear’s arm as they reached back to swing at Daniel again. While Philip had it restrained, Daniel drew his sword and with a decisive movement, stabbed it into the bugbear’s side.

“Enough!” the bugbear growled out. “I forfeit, you win! Take what you want and go!”

Daniel and Philip shared a quick glance and a nod before Philip brought a fist down on the top of their head, knocking them unconscious. They glanced up at one another and made eye contact for a moment before they both burst out into snickering. “Come on, show me what they were protecting!”

Philip chuckled and went over to the three small chests gathered in the corner and began to dig through them. However, it seemed that with everything he found he became more and more frustrated. “It’s garbage!” he declared. “It’s all garbage! The most interesting thing in here is a broken sword hilt and a knitting needle that claims to be unbendable, but there’s no mate.”

“What?” Daniel snapped, stomping over to investigate. Philip was right and all three chests were virtually empty and among the few things he did see were empty bottles, a bit of faded parchment, and a tiny cage. “This is all useless; we can’t even sell it!”

“I know,” growled Philip, more than a little displeased. He stood in a huff and hissed at the unconscious bugbear for wasting his time while Daniel went about collecting his daggers from their back. “Come on, maybe there’s something actually half decent across the hall.”

However, it seemed that they hadn’t managed to halt the bugbear’s call of alarm early enough before because just outside were two dire wolves sniffing around trying to find some way to help their now fallen master. Before either of them could react, one of the wolves leapt at Philip’s teeth bared, but the dragon simply grasped it in his claws and sent it skittering down the hall. The second wolf snarled and attacked Daniel who stepped aside and stabbed it with the daggers still in his hands.

“We don’t have time for this,” Daniel snapped, shoving away the first wolf back towards its pack mate. “Roast them for Lolth’s sake!”

Philip nodded then took in a deep breath and let out a bright cone of red-hot fire. One of the wolves made it out of the blast only mostly on fire, but before it could do anything Daniel swept in and stabbed it with his daggers. The dire wolf let out a short whimper of pain before collapsing with the other. Without a second glance, they made it into the other room which was a direct mirror of the other and most likely served the same purpose. Even the chests were in the same spot and they eagerly dove into them to see what they could find.

“Oh, this is much better!” Daniel crowed, pulling out a pair of statues. One was of a rather smug halfling, but the other was of some creature straight from his nightmares which he showed to Philip. “Okay, I don’t know much about magic, but this one creeps me the hell out so there has to be some kind of magic on it.”

Philip glanced up from the painted egg display he was delicately clutching in his claws and actually flinched when he saw what Daniel was holding out to him. “I’ve had one of those used on me. It’s got some kind of necromancy spell put on it, and judging by the vibe I’m getting from it, it’s a pretty powerful one. Have you seen this egg? It’s wonderful!”

Daniel peered in close enough to see that every bit of the shell had been carefully hand-painted with scenes of human suffering in horrifying detail. It made him a little sick to his stomach, but even he could see the time and effort that went into making it and that was exactly what Philip loved more than anything. “It’s great.”

Philip carefully put it in his pack and picked up a vest that looked to be covered in at least a hundred near uselessly tiny pockets, but tossed it back into the box. “Well, I think that’s all we’re going to get here, yeah?”

“Onwards, then,” Daniel grinned, leading the way back into the hall. Luckily there wasn’t anything waiting for them this time and they made it to the overcrowded dining area unmolested. “What the fuck happened in here?”

“The wall collapsed,” Philip said unhelpfully.

Daniel glared at him before going in so he could closer investigate. As Philip had pointed out, the wall had fallen in right near the corner of the room. As he looked around he noticed that the other side of the wall was empty and led into a long narrow hallway. “You know, I’m sorry I criticized you for wanting to bring torches because it’s way too dark in here for me.”

Philip smirked at once again being right as he too came to look at the wall. “I guess this was the servants’ passage at one time,” he noted.

“I bet it has a way into that room downstairs,” Daniel grinned, already stepping over the rubble into the passage. “Hand me a torch.” Philip rolled his eyes but handed over a lit torch. Daniel looked around for a bit before his eyes settled on a pile of rocks that was probably supposed to be the stairs. “Well, I guess we’re not going that way.”

“Left it is then!” Philip said cheerfully, walking off. Before he got even a couple metres away he stopped and said, “Ah. Well, I think we’ve finally found the thing that actually turns people away from this place.”

Daniel cautiously stepped forward to see lots of spikes. They were all at least knee high and wickedly sharp, and they completely filled the corridor from wall to wall and down a good five or so metres. “Can’t you just fly us across?”

“Normally, yes, but this hall is too narrow for me to spread my wings.”

Daniel frowned a moment in thought before he snapped, grinning. “I’ve got an idea. Sit on the floor with your feet flat to the wall.”

Philip narrowed his eyes but did as he was told as Daniel did the exact same thing behind him. “All right, now what?”

“Push against my back at like a quarter strength and when I say ‘go’ take a step with your right, my left foot. Okay? Go!” To both of their surprise, they managed to get the one foot off the ground. “Okay, next one!” Again it worked. “Next!” They somehow managed to actually walk their way up the walls of the narrow hall until they comfortably cleared the spikes. “Okay, now we’re going to go down the hall.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Against my better judgement, yes.”

“Then we go down the hall.”

It was slow, difficult work, and Daniel actually slipped once, but they did make it. When they were back on flat ground Daniel brushed his hands off with a look of surprise. “Wow. I thought for sure we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Philip turned on the young drow and got very close to his face. “If you do anything like that ever again I won’t have to worry about spikes killing you because I’ll do it myself,” he hissed, and Daniel at least had the decency to look sheepish.

“Everything’s fine though?” he said cautiously. Philip just growled and he quickly and wisely shut his mouth.

Fortunately, Philip’s attention was grabbed by a set of three gold chests in what should have been the corner tower of the castle. After giving Daniel one final glare he made his way over and tried to open one of them. Unfortunately, it was locked as would be expected so Daniel knelt down beside it and started fiddling with his lockpick set again. With a resounding _click_ , the chest swung open and he moved on, meeting a similar success.

“Oh, yes, this is much better,” Philip cooed, pulling a long sword inscribed with runes from its sheath. “I may actually use a weapon if it looks as nice as this.”

Daniel smirked, grabbing a small pouch of fine, black dust. “Do you know what this is? This is Dust of Disappearing This is going to be so useful when we actually have to sneak into someplace.”

Philip hummed in delight as he investigated the armour he had found and thought about how it would look tossed on his hoard. He gathered up the rest of the useful items, including a lantern that turned invisible things visible, a second set of daggers in case anything happened to Daniel’s, and a wand used for detecting magic. “Come on; now that I know there’s useful stuff in here I’m a bit more excited about the rest of this place.” He started confidently strutting down the hall, but he didn’t get more than ten steps away when his foot suddenly slipped out from under him. Eyes wider than they had ever been, Philip fell straight on his ass in the least graceful tumble of any dragon any time anywhere.

“O-oh my fuck,” Daniel positively cackled, leaning against a wall and clutching his sides. “You should have seen your face!”

Philip scowled, refusing to acknowledge the warmth blooming under his cheek scales, as he carefully scooted along the floor until he was on normal ground and could stand. “Okay, so slicked floor. How do you suggest we get across this time?”

Daniel just grinned and started running towards the slick floor. Just before he hit unstable land he leapt in the air, pulled a tight flip and landed in a power slide which sent him whizzing down the hall. When he got to the end his feet hit friction first and he turned a somersault and landed perfectly on his feet. “I’d recommend doing it just like that!”

Philip grumbled something about show off elves and how they’d get their comeuppance as he gingerly stepped onto the slicked floor. Clinging to the wall with all his strength he slid forward one foot at a time, slowly but steadily making his way to safety and completely ignoring Daniel’s heckling for him to hurry up.

“Took you long enough, old man,” Daniel sneered.

“Well, that’s certainly no way to treat your elders,” a rough, high-pitched voice said from behind him.

“No, it’s not,” agreed another, deeper and more gravely than the first.

Daniel whipped around to see what looked like the statues of two hulking dog demons standing in the corner, facing towards one another as if they were gossiping. “Did you hear that? I could have sworn someone said something,” he asked, stepping forward to investigate. “Is anyone behind there? Come out and talk if you think you’re so clever.”

“Oh, we know we’re clever,” the high voice said.

“However, it’s quite obvious by now you aren’t,” the deep one added.

Philip scowled at the statues for a moment before his eyes widened and he shouted, “Daniel, look out! Those aren’t statues, they’re-”

“We’re gargoyles!” the high voice delighted as the other gargoyle darted its arms forwards to ensnare Daniel in a tight, bruising grip sinking its claws into his sides as he let out a pained yelp. The first gargoyle took its chance to attack Philip while he was distracted with Daniel’s situation, managing to get a deep gash across his arm. Snarling, Philip retaliated with a cone of fire right in its stone face causing it to leap back to its partner wailing “That hurt!”

“Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” the other said slowly and sunk his claws deeper in Daniel’s side. “Leave the loot where you found it and get out and we’ll let both of you live.”

“Yeah! Maybe we’ll let you live!”

“You think you can kill me?” Philip snarled, fanning his wings as far as they’d go and puffing out his chest. “I think you’ll find that I can eat a pair of gargoyles like you for a mid-afternoon snack.”

“That’s true, but your friend here doesn’t seem to be as sturdy as you are,” the second pointed out, nodding at Daniel.

Philip growled lowly in his chest at the now very real threat. He was a dragon for the mountain’s sake! How dare these puny monsters challenge him or threaten his charge? He was about to tell them they had crossed the wrong dragon on the wrong day when his gaze fell on Daniel who had been squirming in the gargoyle’s grasp the whole time. Clever drow that he was he had somehow managed to worm his hand into the pocket he was storing his multi-coloured stone in and had his fingers pressed on the yellow section. Philip turned his attention back to the gargoyles with a smarmy grin. “You’d be surprised at how he overcomes his lack of sturdiness.”

The first gargoyle wrinkled its face. “And just what is that-”

It was very suddenly interrupted by a cube of lightning emanating from Daniel’s stone, freeing him and sending the two gargoyles hurtling back into the wall. “Let’s go,” he gasped, grabbing Philip’s arm and dragging him away from the fight. “Let’s go now!”

Philip quickly followed behind him, more focused on shielding Daniel (who wasn’t looking so great after three fights and getting captured by stone monsters) from any attacks from behind. Unfortunately, because he was so focused on protecting Daniel and Daniel so focused on just getting away, neither of them noticed Philip stepping on a pressure plate. With absolutely no warning, the floor tilted down into a chute that sent them bouncing against walls as they made their unwitting way down, down, down. As if to add insult to injury (or maybe injury to insult) there were four light hammers on the way down all positioned to perfectly smack both of them right between the eyes.

As soon as they were on solid ground Daniel collapsed face first to the floor clutching his forehead. “This is the worst day of my life!” he wailed, rolling back and forth.

Philip rubbed his forehead as well, but mostly in sympathy as he knew the damage didn’t affect him as much as it did his friend. “I think it may be time to heal up,” he said in a gentle voice even Daniel rarely got to hear. Daniel, in turn, just whimpered a bit and allowed himself to be propped right side up against a wall while Philip dug in his bag for one of the health potions he’d insisted Daniel bring along. “Come on then,” he nearly cooed tilting the blue mixture into Daniel’s mouth. As soon as the liquid touched his tongue, Daniel started convulsing but Philip managed to make him drink the whole thing and slapped a hand over his mouth to keep him from spitting it back up.

When he finally swallowed the last of it, Daniel gave a mighty shudder and shoved Philip’s hand away so he could curl up in a ball. “I hate that stuff,” he panted, trying to regain his breath as he recovered from the health potion.

“Well, do you at least feel any better?”

Daniel was quiet for a moment as if taking inventory before he shrugged. “I mean I feel like death but I don’t feel like I’m about to die from getting the shit kicked out of me.”

Philip chuckled and handed him the waterskin to at least help wash the taste out of his mouth. “Well, you up for starting again or do you want to call it quits and go home?”

Daniel shoved himself up and looked around. “Can we even get out?” he wondered. “I have no idea where the world’s shittiest slide dumped us on our asses.”

Not a moment after Daniel said that Philip noticed a smell on the air: old ashes. “I… I think I might actually know where we are,” he said cautiously, following his nose towards the corner. Sure enough, when he found where the scent was strongest he noticed a little hole no bigger than Daniel’s pinky in the mortar of the wall. Curious, he stuck a claw in the hole and started scratching until it was wide enough for him to look through. “Yeah, we’re right outside of the kitchen.”

“That’s neat and all and I’m super interested that you managed to figure out where we are,” Daniel said, far more interested in the treasure he’d found. Most of it had just been gems and coins, but two things had garnered his attention. “Listen to this it’s kinda fucked up.” He put a small rectangle box of metal to Philip’s ear, and much to the dragon’s horror he soon heard the scuttering of a hundred spiders. “Cool, isn’t it?” Daniel grinned, taking it away. “And look! This is like a reverse flint. It sparks when wet!”

Philip cocked a brow at his excited companion, again wondering how he always managed to go from being on Death’s door to rambunctious and eager to start any fight he thought he could win. “That’s super useful. Too bad you don’t have someone who can literally breathe fire, that’d be really convenient.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Shove off. I almost died; I’m allowed to have all the fun I want.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a light glinting at the end of the hall. “Come on, maybe there’s a way out this way.”

Philip nodded and they were almost to the end when they heard someone talking. “Do you smell it, Lucy,” an oily male voice cooed. “Can you find it for me, darling?” There was a deep bark for an answer. “What was that? You say we have visitors?”

Daniel froze, back instinctively against the wall. He motioned for Philip to do the same and he did, both of them holding their breath.

“You’re here, I know you are,” the oily voice said. “I can hear you and Lucy smelled you.” The creature stepped forward and Daniel took a sharp breath in for they were being hunted by an imp - a small, bright red man with bat wings and a scorpion tail. The imp heard Daniel’s breath and he turned so their noses were right next to each other. “Found you,” he said with a nasty grin.

Philip went to attack him, but he apparently heard him coming because with a snap of the fingers he was invisible. “Get out here and fight, you coward.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” the imp cooed. “I just wanted to make sure Lucy got her fair share, too.” Daniel and Philip turned around to see a giant black dog with fire in her eyes and foam around her six-inch fangs. The imp appeared with another snap of the fingers. “Get ‘em, girl.” The hellhound bonded forward, fangs bared and pounced on Philip, who snarled in pain as she sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Daniel went to attack the beast with his drawn sword, but a sharp sting in his thigh brought him down to his knees. When he turned the imp just grinned at him and snapped out of sight.

“Make him visible!” Philip snarled, slashing at the hellhound with his own claws and teeth. 

“How?!”

“I don’t know, maybe some fucking magic!”

“Right, right!” Daniel took a deep breath and focused all he had on the childhood memory of learning magic with his peers. He ignored his past failures at performing the spell and concentrated on the spell itself. Suddenly, everything was glowing with a brilliant violet light, including the hellhound Philip had by now soundly bested, and the imp. Who happened to be right in front of him.

“Well, shit,” the imp muttered under his breath.

Daniel just grinned and slashed him with his sword which sent him stumbling towards Philip who took great pleasure in smacking him against the wall with his tail. There was a large puff of smoke that cleared as quickly as it appeared, taking the imp and hellhound with it. “I have to admit, I was impressed with the magic,” Philip grinned. “I thought you said you’d never do magic.”

Daniel sputtered indignantly. “You’re the one who told me to!”

“I was actually expecting you to use the lantern,” Philip shrugged. “You know, the one we just got that turns invisible things visible?”

Daniel slapped his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. “I forgot we had that.”

Philip just chuckled and nudged him gently. “Come on, this way was a dead end. Grab what we can from the chests and let’s go.” Within the chests, he managed to find a shelter orb that would fetch a nice price on the market along with a faintly glowing crystal that wasn’t magic, but that he could probably convince someone was.

“These are for you,” Daniel muttered, distracted, shoving a set of pretty earrings shaped like teardrops at him as he investigated the pair of daggers in his other hand. “Holy shit I think this is a poison dagger.”

“Can I see?” Philip requested. Daniel grunted and handed one over while he went through the rest of the stuff, shoving anything that looked even remotely valuable in his bag. Philip returned the dagger when he was done investigating it and with an impressed nod said, “Yeah, it’s definitely poisonous; magic, too. Keep an eye on that thing.”

Daniel nodded and attached the sheaths to either side of his belt, then turned and made his way back down the hall. Things were quiet as they made their way back to where they had been, and on down the hall, but just before they got to the corner, Daniel heard some unfortunately familiar chattering. “Quiet,” he hissed. “There’s some mephits down in the corner. If we’re careful we can get the jump on them.”

“What kind of mephits?”

“Probably magma if the mephit honey is any indication.”

Philip scowled. “I’m guessing fire won’t be super helpful here, then.”

Daniel bit his lip in thought before snapping his fingers and retrieving the multi-coloured stone disk. “You said this had Ray of Frost on it, yeah? Magma mephits hate that shit.”

Philip nodded and took the stone. “So I’m guessing we’re doing a range attack?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, pulling out his sling. He didn’t use it often, but he was rather glad of it now. “On three? One… two… three.”

As one, they leapt into action, Philip shooting a spell at the one on the left while Daniel shot a rock at the one on the right. Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t do quite as much damage as he’d hoped with his sling and the two mephits that Philip didn’t freeze near solid didn’t enjoy being attacked, and the one in the middle that hadn’t gotten hit yet flew straight at Philip while the other shot a cone of flame right at them. Fortunately, Philip managed to step in front of Daniel so he could take the worst of the damage. 

Before the flames even managed to completely die down Daniel leapt over Philip’s shoulder with his sword drawn, slashing it across the startled mephit’s chest, then ducked down to allow Philip to follow up with a harsh smack with his tail sending it flying back. The third mephit had by now defrosted itself and together the three of them breathed fire at Daniel and Philip. Philip bent forward to shield Daniel with his wings, but one of his legs got caught in the worst of the flames. However, this didn’t stop Daniel because he dashed forward and slashed all three of them with one stroke.

As soon as he did two of the mephits began to shake violently and Philip had barely enough time to grab Daniel tight to his chest and turn around before they both exploded. The final mephit shrieked and swooped in for an attack, but Philip held up the stone and shot another Ray of Frost at it, freezing it solid so it couldn’t explode.

“Okay, so maybe attacking three fire-breathing elementals with no cover while my fire-proof friend had to jump in to keep me from being charbroiled wasn’t the best idea,” Daniel said after a moment of silence.

Philip snorted and shoved him good-naturedly. “If you crave death so much you could just tell me; that way I’d at least get a good meal out of the deal.”

Daniel barked out a startled laugh and stumbled off to see if he could find something of value in the mephits’ nest of three chests. He threw open the middle one and was delighted to find a full set of Sylvan battle regalia including armour, shield, and a scimitar. It was all very pretty and somehow even the leather armour and wooden shield managed to shine with a rainbow pearlescence. He quickly shod his regular armour and posed with his arms out. “What do you think?”

“You look lovely,” Philip said, not bothering to look up and instead focusing on the chest to the left. Daniel was about to get upset over the lack of attention but Philip interrupted him by saying, “Do we have some kind of stick somewhere?”

Daniel frowned and bent forward to investigate the chest as well. He could tell there was definitely something wrong but he’d be damned if he could put a finger on it. “Er, not that I know of? I mean we have a couple of swords, but I don’t think those would be very helpful?”

Philip bit his lower lip and squinted harder at the box as if that would help him unlock its secrets. “Okay, so we’re going to back way up and you’re going to shoot both of these boxes with your sling, okay?”

Daniel nodded and once they were a safe distance away he grabbed another rock from the ground and hurled it towards the chest on the left, hitting it with a resounding thunk. As soon as the rock made contact, the lid of the chest flew open to reveal a set very sharp teeth and a long sticky looking purple tongue. It thrashed about for a moment trying to find its prey but when there was nothing to be found it quieted down and went back to looking just like a regular chest. White-faced, Daniel looked up at Philip who nodded and he sent another rock flying at the other chest which did the exact same thing as the other.

When the chests were completely still Daniel whirled around to face Philip. “What were those things?”

“Mimics,” Philip said gruffly. “They sit around looking like normal chests but if you try to open one they eat you.”  
  
“Why haven’t I ever seen one before?”  
  


Philip shrugged. “We normally rob places that still have people living in them. Mimics usually only go for places that have been abandoned.”

“Well, I’m sure as fuck glad I’ve never had to deal with one,” Daniel shuddered. “How did you even know they were there?”

“I didn’t, that’s the thing. They’re impossible to distinguish from a normal chest until they attack; that’s why I had you attack them first. I just smelled something off in that corner and I wasn’t willing to risk it.” He grinned, all of his abnormally pointy teeth showing. “Normally I would have just let you open it so I could see the look on your face when you were attacked by a box, but we’ve already had one close call today. How are you doing, by the way?”

Daniel grimaced at the reminder of their fight with the mephits. “Well, considering I’ve been caught mostly on fire twice in the past ten minutes after drinking a health potion that feels more like poison than anything I’m doing pretty good.”

Philip narrowed his eyes. “And on an objective scale?”  
  


“Probably somewhere around a twenty-nine out of seventy.”

Philip snorted out a laugh. “I have no idea where you got those numbers but I think you’re gonna be fine for now.”

“Honestly I’ll say just about anything to keep you from forcing that health potion down my throat.”

Philip thumped him on the forehead. “How’s this: I won’t make you take it until we come up against something I don’t want to fight.”

“Yeah, but you want to fight everything.”

“Well, then it’s your lucky day.” Daniel chuckled and Philip smiled and shoved him down the hall. “Go on. And be careful you don’t accidentally knock into one of those things.”

Daniel made a face at the mere thought of touching one of those monsters, and with his eyes narrowed at them and his back flush to the wall he scooted past with Philip following behind as normal. He made his way around the corner and let out a deep sigh. “More spikes,” he warned Philip. “And this time they’re in a pit. Since you didn’t seem to care for my solution of getting over them last time, why don’t you figure it out?”

Philip snorted. If I recall correctly you carry around a set of pitons. You could just scale the wall like a normal person.”

Daniel pouted but fished the small spikes from his bag. “You sure know how to suck the fun right out of everything,” he muttered, quickly and skillfully making his way across the pit. When he was on the other side he turned to Philip who was still in the same spot. “Well? What now? How are you getting over here?”

“You’ll see!” Philip called back, grinning. He looked over the pit once more just to be sure he could do what he was planning, then he took a deep breath and ran as fast as he could.

When his foot hit the very edge of the floor he pushed off with both legs with all his strength, sending him hurtling through the air towards Daniel. However, the pit was a good ten feet long and even at his best he had no hopes of clearing it with a mere jump, so when he felt himself start to fall he unfurled his wings as wide as the hall would let him and flapped tucking into a backflip and landed perfectly safe on the other side.

Daniel narrowed his eyes and shoved him in the chest. “Bloody show off you are.”

Philip grinned and bowed. “Don’t worry, even at my worst I’m nothing next to you.” Daniel just sputtered, his blush dark enough that it even coloured his grey skin. Philip snickered and pulled him along by the shoulder. “Let’s go the stairs are right there, and I bet we can get out of here if we make it to the next floor.”

Daniel grunted and moved ahead, starting up the stairs. He very suddenly wished he hadn’t gone up first when about halfway up the step beneath his foot suddenly gave way sending him tumbling forward and his left foot dropped into a hole lined with wickedly pointed knives all facing downwards. The blades had torn his leather boots to ribbons and he could already feel tiny cuts all the way up to his knee so in a tiny voice he squeaked out, “Uh, Philip? Can I get some help please?”

Philip wrinkled his brow in confusion but when he looked down and saw the problem he went a bit pale. “Well, shit.”

Daniel cackled hysterically. “Have I ever told you I fucking hate dungeons? There’s never any decent shit in here because everybody’s already taken it, there are traps fucking everywhere, and monsters of every shape and size crawling all over the damn place. I really just want to get this fucking mirror and go home so we can swear to only rob living people. I hate this.”

“I know,” Philip rumbled as soothingly as possible. “I know you hate it and as soon as we get out of here I promise you never have to go in another dungeon for the rest of your life.” He reached down into the hole to grab one of the knives and started wiggling it back and forth to break it. “Now if you just hold still-”

“What are you doing?” Daniel screeched, grabbing fistfuls of Philip’s hair. “I swear to fuck if you make me lose my leg I will de-wing you! You’ll never fly again!”

Philip rolled his eyes and managed to snap the blade off its holster and slapped it on the ground. “There. Happy? Now, hold still.” Unfortunately, the remaining eleven knives didn’t go quite as smoothly; Philip’s hand was severely cut up and Daniel got stabbed in the calf more than once, but Daniel was free. Philip took one look at Daniel’s leg and winced. “Okay, so you definitely need another potion if you even want to make it to the top of the stairs.”

“I won’t even argue with you,” Daniel panted, eyes screwed up in pain. He grabbed one of his remaining potions and uncorked it with his teeth then proceeded to drink the entire thing. As usual, it took a moment for it to settle in his stomach but when it did he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from being sick. However, it did do exactly as advertised and his leg magically stitched itself back together; it wasn’t perfectly healed, but it would be enough to get him out of this damn castle and home where he could rest. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Philip said, staring at his palm. He focused for a moment on all the magic coursing through his body that kept him alive and directed it to his injuries which started to fade until they were just faint red marks. “Alright, no more games, we need to get out of here. Follow behind me.”

Daniel nodded and Philip marched up the stairs, careful to test every step with his tail before putting any weight on it. They made their way up to the next floor without any issue. Daniel tried to pass him as to take the lead as usual, but Philip stuck out an arm to hold him back and glared. He took a step forward and right onto a pressure plate that sent a hailstorm of ball bearings raining down right on him causing him to lose his balance. He turned and glared at Daniel who had started giggling like this was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

“Holy shit I’m so glad that was you and not me,” he wheezed between laughs. “I just don’t think I could take being on the shit end of another one of these traps without straight up bawling my eyes out.”

Philip growled but his glare lessened as he shakily made his way back to his feet. This was even worse than that time Daniel had dragged him out to that frozen lake so they could slide around on the ice. “We need to figure out how to get across.”

“You need to figure it out,” Daniel corrected. “I already know what I’m doing.” Without another word, he tied his rope around Philip’s waist and ever so gracefully glided across the slippery marbles.

He very slowly started to pull Philip along but the moment he started to move Philip fell to the floor with a loud thump. “Just drag me like this,” he sighed, draping one arm over his eyes while Daniel giggled and tugged him along. Eventually, but not soon enough to save his pride, he was back on his feet. “Let’s, er, let’s go,” he mumbled. Daniel once again tried to take the lead, but Philip grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back.

This was rather convenient because as soon as Daniel was behind him an arrow whizzed through the air directly where he was standing. Philip whirled around and snarled with his wings spread out to brush either side of the corridor and keep Daniel from view. He narrowed his eyes to see further down the hall and as he did another arrow came at them, but missed by a mile. From the gloom two gnolls emerged, their hulking furry bodies hunched over at the shoulder and saliva dripping from their snouts.

Before Philip had any time to react, Daniel had scrambled up his back and thrown both of his daggers at each of the creatures, piercing each one in the thigh. “Can’t you sit back for two minutes?” Philip scoffed, rolling his eyes. He took one look at the gnolls and decided that any time spent fighting them was time wasted, so he took in a deep breath and roasted both gnolls in one go.

“No fair, you ruined my daggers,” Daniel scowled, investigating the blackened blades that used to be his knives. “I mean, they were the extra ones that we picked up, but I still liked them.”

Philip scoffed and picked them up and put them in Daniel’s bag, unaffected by their scorching heat. “Once they cool off they’ll be fine for throwing. Just don’t throw around your good ones like that.”

Daniel scoffed under his breath but sulkily followed behind Philip who found the gnolls’ bag that he presumed they had been stuffing with the loot they had come across. “Hey, you know how to use a crossbow, yeah?” Philip asked handing over the weapon. “I’m pretty sure that one’s got some magic on it, too.”

Daniel frowned but took the crossbow to examine it. “Yeah, I know how to use one,” he said, stashing it in his own bag. “I don’t like using them though. I much prefer one on one when I can.”

“Don’t I know it,” Philip grumbled under his breath; Daniel pursed his lips and smacked him on the back of the head. “What is this thing? I saw you looking at one in town the other day.”

Daniel snatched up the long, thin metal tube and grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. “This, dear Philip,” he said grandly, “is a Chime of Opening. You can use it to unlock anything.”

Philip cocked a brow. “You think it would work on the main chambers?”

“Only one way to find out.” He then tugged the bag away so he could look through it himself. “Holy shit, they had the best stuff! Look at this!”

Philip puckered his lips as he investigated the tattered-looking hat in Daniel’s hands. “And that is?”

“I’ll show you.” Daniel slapped the hat on his head and after the resulting puff of magic cleared, Philip found himself looking at… well, himself. “Ta-da!” the false Philip said in Daniel’s voice.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Philip said, clearly impressed while Daniel took the hat off and returned to his normal self. “Anything else of note?”

“Actually, yes,” Daniel said, producing a ring to show Philip. “I think this may be of interest to you?”

Philip inspected the ring in delight. “If this is what I think it is, it could prove to be rather useful.”

Daniel cocked his head. “What is it? I thought it was just a pretty magic ring.”

Philip shook his head. “No, according to legend these are supposed to be able to summon an elemental that you can command.”

“Well, that’s going to come in handy.”

Philip nodded and tugged Daniel away from the now mostly empty bag. “Come on, there’s nothing else of note.” He and Daniel headed down the hall, Philip once again in the front. Oddly enough, there was a curtain covering the entirety of the hall and he glared at it suspiciously. “Step back.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “It’s a curtain, Philip. Not everything is trying to kill us.” He went to move it himself but Philip snarled and smacked his hand away. “Alright, alright,” he huffed, clutching his hand to his chest. “I’ll wait back here while you fight the big bad curtain.”

With a dramatic flourish, Philip tore open the curtains, but absolutely nothing happened. He sheepishly turned around to tell Daniel he was right but was met with only a blank stone wall that definitely hadn’t been there before. “Daniel?!”

“Hi, yes, hello, Daniel here!” Daniel shouted from the other side of the wall, far more concerned with his own issues at the moment. As soon as the wall had silently slotted down between him and Philip another one had appeared at the end of the hallway and the room they created was quickly flooding with water. “Uh, yeah, can you please get me out of here before I drown?”

“I’ll get you out!” Philip swore, ramming his shoulder against the wall, which didn’t even budge. He went to attack it again but was slammed into the wall. He whirled around only to see Daniel looking at him confusion on his face.

“Philip?” he asked nervously. “What was that?”

“Daniel? I thought you were on the other side of the wall?”

“I am on the other side, you stupid overgrown lizard! And if you don’t hurry up you’re going to have to deal with my drowned corpse!” came Daniel’s muffled voice.

Philip turned to the Daniel in front of him just in time to see it grin maliciously and slam into him again. “This is going to be much easier than I thought,” taunted the Daniel Philip now knew was a doppelganger. “You know, I thought beating a mighty dragon would be much harder.” Philip snarled and shot fire at it, but it dodged with a sly smirk and slammed into him again. “Oh, you’re going to have to do much better than that.”

Philip slashed his claws, managing to catch it off guard and hit it across its face. “Philip! I need to get out now!” Daniel called an edge of panic now in his tone.

Philip slammed against the wall again, still unable to make a dent. “Look for some kind of switch! Maybe there’s-” he was cut off by a grunt as the doppelganger once again slammed into him from the side. He growled and batted it away with his tail then threw himself at the wall again. “Daniel!”

Daniel took a deep breath and dove down into the water, squinting through the darkness to try and find anything that could help him escape. He emerged several times to get a quick lungful of air and check on the fight, and it didn’t sound too good on Philip’s end. Once he made it to the end and saw nothing he quickly swam back just in time to hear Philip get thrown into another wall. “There’s nothing in here!”

“Then start hacking at the wall yourself!” Philip shouted, slashing his claws into the doppelganger. He attacked the wall again but turned around in time to catch the monster and throw it off before it could hit him again.

Daniel grunted and got out the daggers he had thrown at the gnolls and started trying to chip away at the wall. He heard Philip throw himself at the wall again before the water finally rose overhead, leaving him unable to do much of anything but float and hold his breath.

“Daniel?” Philip called. When there was no response he yelled a bit louder. “Daniel!” The doppelganger took its opportunity to attack again, but Philip caught it in his unforgiving claws. Then with a loud, angry roar, he threw it at the wall separating him and Daniel, which cracked in several places before it suddenly burst temporarily flooding the hall and knocking Philip back. As the water drained away he sat up and saw two Daniel simultaneously sitting up and rubbing their heads.

One of the Daniels blinked at the other for a moment as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing before turning to Philip. “Philip, listen to me. It’s me. That guy is the fake, okay?”

The other Daniel just rolled his eyes and stabbed him with the daggers still in his hands. The first Daniel froze for a moment and looked back at the Daniel who stabbed him in shock. Then he began to twitch, flashing from Daniel to Philip then a dwarf, a gargoyle, an elf, faster and faster before it settled on the blue humanoid shape of its true form and died. “Well,” said Daniel, yanking his daggers out of the doppelganger. “I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that.”

Philip sat in shocked silence for a moment before bursting out into loud, bright laughter. “No, I can’t imagine you were,” he said, shaking his head. He stood and walked over to help Daniel to his feet. “So, how do I know you’re the real Daniel, hmm?” he teased.

Daniel arched an eyebrow and said flatly, “Maybe you don’t. Maybe I just used magic to make the real Daniel look like a doppelganger when he died. Maybe the Daniel you knew was always a doppelganger. Who knows?”

Philip snorted. “Well, the doppelganger might have had your face, but it certainly didn’t have your sharp tongue. I’m pretty sure even if you are really a doppelganger you’re the one I can trust.”

Daniel dropped his act and beamed at him. “I guess you have me pigeonholed. Now, are you going to make me wait back next time we have to do something or are you going to let me fight, too?”

Philip rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Fight everything in this castle and die. See if I care.”

“You’d care a little bit,” Daniel smirked. “Admit it. You’d be pretty put out if I died.”

Philip glared playfully and pointed down the hall. “Go. Unlike you, I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives in this castle.”

Daniel proudly took his place at the head and went ahead. When he got to the corner he grinned, noticing that there was a good portion of the wall that had somehow collapsed, leading to the room inside. “Philip! I think we found our way out!”

“Thank Bahamut,” Philip muttered. He stomped forward but froze when he saw what was inside. He turned to Daniel with an infuriated look on his face. “There’s a troll in there! Why can’t anything go our way in this damn place?” he hissed.

Daniel swore under his breath. “Is there any way we can get past it?”

Philip peered into the room again. “I think it’s asleep right now. This is probably that thing we heard earlier when we were going through here.”

Daniel pursed his lips. “Okay, we’re going to try to sneak past it, but I’m also going to put these ball bearings on the ground around it so if we do wake it up at least we’ll have a moment while it tries to stand up.” Philip nodded and they carefully crept into the bedroom and Daniel silently emptied his bag of ball bearings so they pooled around the sleeping monster. They made it all the way to the door which opened with the loudest creak either of them had heard.

Unfortunately, this woke up the troll who jerked and immediately went to stand. Fortunately, Daniel’s careful planning paid off and it went tumbling to the ground again and again as it tried to get on its feet. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” Daniel shouted, pushing Philip out the door and slamming it shut behind them. With the door closed, he began piling as much stuff as possible in front of the door, finally stabbing the two daggers he’d ruined on the wall into the doorframe to block the door from opening. “Hopefully, that will keep it occupied long enough for it to get bored of trying to hunt and kill us!” he said with false cheerfulness as he quickly walked through the door.

When they were both out on the landing Daniel let out a relieved sigh at the familiar sight. Until this moment he hadn’t dared hope they would actually be getting out, but now he was sure they could make it home. “Come on, let’s get this stupid fucking mirror and get the hell out of here.”

Philip grunted in agreement and they went to the previously locked door which Dan smugly pointed his Chime of Opening at, causing it to swing open. As predicted, the room inside was grand, far nicer than any of the others they had seen. Thanks to the magical lock, nobody had managed to get inside so everything was untouched since the lord and lady died.

That included the pair of corpses lying on the bed.

“Holy fuck,” Daniel swore, covering his nose with his shirt. “How long have those been there, you reckon?”

“Who’s to say?” Philip grunted. He managed to keep his composure a little better than Daniel, but only just. “All things considered, they’ve most likely been here since they died over a hundred years ago.”

“Then why the fuck do they still smell like this? Surely they should have turned to dust by now.” Philip furrowed his brow in thought, but suddenly the corpses moved, giving Daniel his own answer. “They’re ghouls,” he groaned, drawing his sword. “I hate ghouls.”

“You were telling me on the way over here that you wanted to fight one.”

“I said I wanted to fight a ghost.”

Philip scoffed and shot flames at the shambling corpses. Fire alone apparently couldn’t stop them; before the flames even finished dying down the two monsters leapt at Daniel and Philip. Philip was taken by surprise and snarled as one of them latched its teeth onto his arm, but Daniel managed to shove the one attacking him away with his shield.

“I bet ghosts don’t smell this bad,” Daniel grouched, stabbing the one that had attacked him and kicking it away.

“You’d be surprised,” Philip said, swinging around and smacking both ghouls with his tail. One of them exploded into dust upon hitting the wall but the other one let out a shrill cry and attacked again. It managed to swipe its claws against Daniel’s arm, but he retaliated with his sword and it too exploded into dust.

Daniel sheathed his sword dusted his hands off. “You know there’s something awful behind that door, right?” he said nodding to a door that most likely led to a closet. As the mirror was nowhere to be seen in the room, the closet was the best guess for its location.

Philip snorted. “Based on our experiences so far I’m thinking there’s probably two terrible things.”

Daniel smirked, and offered him the last potion in his bag. “You want this? I’m doing all right, all things considered, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this rough. That doppelganger really did a number on you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Philip shuddered. He took the potion and drained it and Daniel was once again bitter over the fact that potions didn’t make everyone sick. Philip definitely wasn’t completely better, but he didn’t look like a strong breeze would knock him over anymore. Daniel counted that as a win. “Alright, open it up.”

Daniel nodded, and magically unlocked the door. Inside was something a bit odd. The mirror was propped up in the back surrounded by several glowing orbs of light in a rainbow of colors. Piles of shields scattered around the mirror, but no armour or weapons anywhere. He was about to point this out to Philip when the door slammed shut, startling them both. Philip immediately tried to force it open by ramming his shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. Daniel stepped forward and tried to use his Chime again, but all it did was produce a pretty ringing sound.

“This is bull shit,” Daniel snapped, kicking the door. He soon regretted this action and hopped around on one foot while holding the injured one in his hands.

As he was hopping around the cramped room he managed to knock into the mirror. This triggered a response and he watched in slight horror as the shields all formed together into the shape of a large humanoid. He gently tugged on his friend’s sleeve. “Uh, Philip, we have a-”

He nervous warning was interrupted as two fists made of shields swung at them. Daniel managed to yank Philip down with him as he ducked to avoid the attack so they were both unscathed. Philip started off with a fire attack, and Daniel followed up with his sword which bounced uselessly off the shield guardian’s shields. The guardian again attacked, this time managing to catch Philip in the chest. Philip snarled and bit down on the guardian’s arm and slashed with his claws.

While Philip had it distracted, Daniel snuck up behind it and stabbed it with his daggers which were once again useless. The guardian swung at them, which they rolled away from to dodge. Philip leapt on it to slash and bite, and Daniel started digging through his bag. He knew his usual weapons weren’t affecting the guardian, so he needed to fight magic with magic. He soon found what he was looking for, and with a shout he threw the tiny nightmare statue at the guardian. It bounced off harmlessly and fell to the ground. Daniel was worried for a moment that it hadn’t worked, but hellish flames erupted from the ground at the guardian’s feet. Once the flames were gone, the guardian stood still for a moment before collapsing to the ground in a pile of shields.

“This damn mirror better be worth it,” Philip snapped, marching towards it. He examined the window for a moment then nodded. “It is actually pretty nice. What do you think?”

“I dunno, there’s something about it…” Daniel trailed off into silence, eyes locked on the mirror. Visions were flashing across his eyes, visions he couldn’t understand. He saw unpulled carriages of metal that roared down streets swarmed only with humans. He saw a man on a hill and music played but there wasn’t a bard, just a strange black box. He saw the same metal carriages, only much much bigger that flew through the sky with the birds. Strangest of all, he saw human versions of himself and Philip sat nearly on top of one another as they looked into a strange rectangular portal that showed moving pictures. As he watched the Daniel and Philip on the couch smiled gentle smiles and moved their faces closer-

“Daniel!”

Daniel was snapped from his vision and looked up to see his Philip staring at him in concern. “I don’t think I like this mirror,” he slurred, then collapsed to the ground.

“Daniel!” Philip snarled, shaking the drow to try and wake him up. He swore at himself for taking the last health potion and hoisted Dan up into his arms. He ran out of the castle and as soon as he cleared the door, he transformed into his full size and carefully placed Daniel on his back in the safest way he could. He spread his wings and took to the sky, not even stopping to break down their camp. He flew all night, not stopping for rest once just furiously flapping his wings.

He made the journey in just ten hours. The sun had made its way into the sky by the sixth hour and Philip could feel the warmth prickling uncomfortably at his dark scales, but pressed on. He made it to their cave and fell into a heap, completely exhausted. He was so tired he couldn’t summon the energy to transform, so he just curled up around Daniel in his dragon form and let the exhaustion wash over him. He was safe, Daniel was safe, and nothing could happen to them so long as they were in the cave.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil let out a deep sigh and fell back on Dan’s bed watching the other man dart around the room grabbing as much stuff as he could hold and shoving it in his suitcase. “You really are the worst packer ever, you know that?” he yawned.

Dan paused what he was doing and narrowed his eyes at him. “You could help you know.”  
  


Philip snorted. “Yeah, right. Every time I’ve tried to help you you act like I’ve never packed a bag before. I’m pretty sure last time you actually smacked my hand.”

Dan winced at the memory and zipped his bag shut. “Okay, well, you don’t have to just sit there and watch me. You could call the train station and see if we can get a later ticket.”  
  
“I already know we can’t,” Phil pointed out. “I deliberately got the latest ticket possible. If we miss this train we won’t be able to leave until morning.”

Dan whipped around and looked at him wild eyed. “Well, shit,” he said before rushing out the door for the bathroom.

“Try not to blind yourself this time!” Phil cheerfully called after him. He hummed to himself and puttered around the room, making sure Dan had everything. Sure enough, he picked up Dan’s phone charger and wallet and packed a couple pairs of socks. He stashed the charger and wallet in their travel and zipped the suitcase right as Dan stumbled in. “You ready now?”

Dan shoved his toiletries bag into his suitcase and whirled around. “Yes. Let’s go right fucking now.” Without waiting for a response, he shoved past Phil and out the door. By the time Phil made it outside he was already shoving his bags into the boot of a cab he had waved down. “Phil! Come on, we’re going to miss our train!”

Phil rolled his eyes fondly but complied with Dan’s need for speed. “Liverpool Street Station, please,” he ordered the cabby after Dan ushered him in.

“Traffic over there is terrible right about now,” the cabby warned. “It’s gonna take us a good thirty minutes.”

“That’s fine.”

Dan gawked at Phil. “No it’s not! Our train was supposed to leave at a quarter to five and it’s already half past!”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” the cabby apologized. “I’ll get there as fast as I can, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Phil insisted. “We have more than enough time to get there.”

“Phil,” Dan hissed, “if we miss this train because of traffic I’m going to scream.”

Phil cocked an eyebrow. “Well, first off, if we missed it it’d be because someone didn’t pack.” Dan quickly broke eye contact, his ears ever so pink. Phil laced their fingers together so he could press a kiss to the back of his hand. “Luckily I know and love the person in question and our train doesn’t leave until a quarter past five.”

Dan snapped his head back around and narrowed his eyes at his grinning boyfriend. “You, Phil Lester, are a criminal mastermind.”

Phil laughed and dropped their hands. “I prefer to think I learn from my mistakes.”

“That was nearly a year ago, drop it, you ass.”

Phil hummed, pretending to think about it. “Well, we nearly missed our tour to take you to A&E because you were too lazy to pack. It’s probably best that I keep that in mind when booking from now on.”

Dan crossed his arms and pouted slightly. “That was one time.”

“What about when we went to New York and you didn’t pack socks, your laptop charger, or any money?”

“Okay, fine, I’m not good at packing. Maybe I should just let you do it from now on.”

“I offered this time.”

“Shut up!” Dan slapped his hands to his ears. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t deserve this kind of harassment!”

“Of course not, dear,” Phil chuckled, rolling his eyes and looking back out the window. Dan stuck his tongue out at him and the driver chuckled, but the commotion died down quick enough. The ride was mostly quiet spiced with Dan leaning over to show Phil something from Tumblr while the driver asked the typical non-prying questions about their upcoming trip that Phil had to answer ass usual. As the cabby said earlier, the drive did take over a half hour, but thanks to Phil’s prior planning, they got there in plenty of time. Dan climbed out of the cab and started to unload their bags while Phil paid the driver and after weaving through the crowded station and showing their tickets to the appropriate people they were sat in the waiting area for their platform.

They were completely absorbed in their phones when there was a soft cough in front of them and as one they looked up to see a slightly nervous young woman smiling at them with a very young boy hiding behind her legs looking at Phil like he hung the moon. “Uh, hi,” she said awkwardly. “You’re Dan and Phil right? What am I saying I know it’s you two I don’t even know-”

“Yeah, it’s us,” Dan interrupted with a kind laugh, and she looked absolutely relieved to be stopped mid ramble. “I’m guessing you watch our videos?”

“Er, well, I used to?” she admitted, blushing a light pink. “I quit watching you guys about a year ago, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, tastes change,” Phil assured her. “Do you still want a selfie or…?”

“Well, the reason I came over isn’t for actually for me,” she said smiling. She leaned down and grabbed the boy’s hand and pulling him out to stand in front of Phil. “This is my son, Todd, and he’s the biggest AmazingPhil fan I know.” She looked at Dan and winced. “Sorry, Dan, he’s not getting his hands on yours for a while yet.”

Dan snorted. “Honestly, I wouldn’t want him to.”

Phil ignored their short exchange and stood so he could crouch down to Todd’s height and smiled his brightest smile at him. “Hi, Todd, my name’s Phil. It’s nice to meet you.”

Todd’s eyes got bigger and rounder before he bashfully ducked his head and looked up through his dark curls. “Hi,” he said in a voice so quiet Phil almost didn’t hear him.

“Do you like watching my videos?”

Todd nodded furiously. “I like lions, too,” he said, grabbing the pull in his hoodie and began chewing it.

“I bet Lion wishes he could hear that,” he chuckled. He pointed at Dan who was watching their interaction closely. “Do you know who that is?”

Todd nodded again. “That’s Dan.”

“Yeah, Dan’s my best friend. Who’s your best friend?”

“You.”

Dan made a strangled noise, but Phil managed to hide his reaction to the adorable answer a little better. “Well, you’re one of my best friends, too, then.”

Todd’s jaw dropped, the string dropped from his mouth to wetly hang where it belonged. He looked up at his mother who just laughed and nudged him forward. “Can I have a hug?” he asked tentatively like he really thought he could possibly be rejected.

Phil laughed and after glancing up to get an okay from his mother he said “You absolutely can!” He opened his arms as wide as they could go and after Todd flung himself in them he was wrapped up in the best hug of his life.

“I love you, Phil,” Todd said softly and Phil’s heart melted and he hugged just a bit tighter. When Todd finally pulled away he beamed at Phil like he had single handedly saved Christmas.

After clearing his throat of the lump lodged inside it, Phil asked, “Do you think we could take a picture for your mom?” He had noticed her taking pictures almost the whole exchange and she smiled and mouthed he thanks.

Todd nodded, and after a moment of scrutinizing Dan said, “Should we ask Dan, too?”

Phil chuckled. “Whatever you want, buddy. It’s all up to you.”

Todd thought it over for another moment before finally deciding, “Dan can come.”

Dan bowed grandly, “Thank you very much.” A moment later he and Phil were knelt on either side of Todd who had his arms around Phil’s neck like a grinning kohala.

“Thanks so much, you two, you have no idea how much this means to him,” the mother gushed. “I honestly picked the best guys ever to stan as a teenager. Almost jealous I didn’t get to meet you when I was a super fan.”

“We love meeting people who watch our videos,” Dan said. “People of all ages. Also, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“OH!” She blushed, and stuck out her hand. “Sorry, how rude of me; my wife is much better at this kind of thing. My name is Viviana.”

“Well, the two of you have a great kid,” Phil said, standing and shaking the hand.

“We’re lucky to have him,” she smiled down at him. “Speaking of my wife: Todd, honey, we have to go, mummy’s waiting on us. Say bye bye.”

Todd got in one last hug around Phil’s knees before taking his mother’s hand as they walked away. With the other he was waving at them and giggling. “Bye bye, Dan! Bye bye, Phil!”

“Bye bye, Todd,” Dan and Phil said in unison, waving until they saw Todd and Viviana go sit with another woman and Todd climbed into her lap and began to animatedly talk to her.

“Can we have like twelve kids?” Dan sighed dreamily, watching the family.

Phil laughed. “Well, let’s see how well we can take care of a Sim baby and maybe we’ll talk about getting a real one. Maybe not twelve, though.”

Dan rolled his eyes, and gently shoved him. “You know what I mean.”

Phil smiled and laced his fingers around Dan’s left hand and brought it up to kiss the ring finger on it. “Maybe we’ll get some kind of decoration here first.”

Dan breathing hitched for a half second before he was back to his usual teasing demeanor. “Well, you better hurry up, old man. Neither of us are getting any younger.”

“No, I guess we’re not,” Phil said, thinking about the little black box hidden away in his props chest. “We’re really not.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Hever Castle was beautiful, and anyone who got the chance to go should really take it, Dan would never begrudge them that. However, it was rather difficult to get to, even when you knew where you were going and what you were doing. When Phil is driving a rental car in the typical South England downpour it was apparently impossible.

“Dan, face it we’re lost,” Phil whined like the quitter he was. “Let me pull over and ask for directions.”

“We have directions!” Dan protested, waving the printed out directions from the website. You must be doing something wrong.”

Phil sputtered indignantly. “I’m doing exactly what you tell me to! Maybe you’re doing something wrong.”

Dan pursed his lips, refusing to admit there might even be a flicker of truth to the very thing he’d been thinking for the past ten minutes. “I’m literally reading off a sheet of paper. Unless you’re trying to imply I can’t read, I doubt it’s me.”

Phil groaned and dragged his hand down his face. “You know I’m not. Maybe we’re just both really bad at directions. Come on, just let me pull over real quick.”

“Give me five more minutes?” Dan wheedled. “Please? I promise if things are just worse that we can just ask for directions.”

Phil narrowed his eyes. “Why is this so important to you anyways? You wouldn’t even let me use my phone.”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno. My mum and dad always used to navigate for each other using real maps, and I definitely can’t read a map that well so this was the logical second. It just seems really grown up to me, I can’t describe it.”

Phil sighed. “Well, asked and answered, I guess. We’ll go another ten minutes and then ask for help.”

Dan leaned over the console and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just drive, okay? We’re looking for a road called Hever Road.”

“Dan, we turned onto Hever Road already.”

“Shit. Well, now all I’ve got is ‘turn left, turn right.’ I’m in hell.”

Phil laughed fondly. “Well, in that case I guess-”

“Holy shit, I think that’s it!” Dan interrupted, gesturing wildly out the windshield. Sure enough, the rain was slacking off just enough so that they could see through the trees and there was Hever Castle and Gardens looming in the distance. “Fuck, I thought we’d never get here!”

Following the road before them, they drove up to the castle, excitement growing steadily. “I’ve never stayed in a castle before,” Phil admitted. “I mean, yeah, I’ve visited them, but I never spent the night.”

“I have,” Dan said. “Mum and dad send me and Adrien on a bunch of little community field trips to get us out of the house during the summer. Adrien had loads of fun but I was at that age where I obstinately made everything I didn’t want to do torture so I thought it was awful.”

“You mean like your age now?”

Dan narrowed his eyes playfully. “Yeah, well, I was going to let you tweet about us staying at a castle, but now I’m going to.”

Phil sputtered indignantly. “That’s hardly fair!”

“Too bad! I’m already typing it out!”

“Ugh, you’re the worst.”

“You know, you say that all the time and I don’t think you know what it means.”

“It means I secretly hate you and as soon as Janet from the shops is ready I’m running away with her.”

“Won’t change the fact that I got to tweet about a castle first.”

Phil looked like he would have normally kept their banter going, but he was too busy pulling up to the valet and rolling down the window. “Hi, we’re here under a reservation for Lester? Also, this is a rental car and they said we could just leave it with you and they’d just charge my card?”

“Yes, sir,” the valet said, opening the door so they could get out. “We have staff who return rental cars for our guests.”

“Great! Well, I’ll just, uh,” Phil trailed off as a bellhop apparated at the boot and started unloading their luggage onto a luggage cart. He moved to help, but the bellhop was so efficient any assistance was thoroughly unneeded.

“Here’s the keys,” Dan said, mercifully stepping in and taking the keys from Phil’s hand. “We just need to check in at the front desk correct?”

The valet nodded. “Yes, and when you know what room you are, just tell Jay here and he’ll deliver your luggage.”

“Thanks!” Dan beamed, and steered Phil towards the main lobby. This seemed to snap Phil out of his stupor and he quickly informed the front desk of their situation and found out what room they were in and told Jay who led them right to it. The room was spacious and had furniture in it that was probably older than Dan, but the only thing he was interested in was the big cushy bed which he fell back on immediately.

“Dan, there’s a clawfoot tub in here!” Phil called from the bathroom excitedly.

“That’s cool as fuck,” Dan murmured, doing his best to melt into the luxurious duvet.

Phil wandered out of the bathroom after giving it his customary inspection and crawled in the bed next to Dan. “Come on, don’t give in yet. We’re supposed to be meeting Martyn and Cornelia for dinner, remember?”

“Can’t we just skip?” Dan whined. “We’re going to be spending the weekend with them, I doubt they’ll miss us for one meal. Tell them we’re too busy fucking in a fancy hotel room to go to dinner.”

Phil barked out a laugh and pressed a kiss to Dan’s curly hair. “I don’t think that will work. I’m pretty sure we’re going over a schedule so we don’t have to spend the weekend in each other’s pockets.”

Dan flopped over and grumbled into his folded arms for a bit before sighing and sitting up. “Alright, then. Let’s go to dinner with the in-laws.”

Phil’s eyes flashed deviously and a sly grin worked its way across his mouth. “Well, we don’t have to be there for a couple more hours. Cornelia insisted we get a chance to settle into our room.”  
  
“Thank god,” Dan sighed, collapsing back down on the bed. “Let me sleep here until I die here.”

“You know, the bathroom here is really cool,” Phil said conversationally.

“Oh, yeah? Great.”

“Yeah, it’s got probably the biggest shower I’ve ever seen in person. It’s like they made it for two people.”

Dan froze as Phil pressed a quick kiss to the nape of his neck. “Anyway,” he continued brightly. “I’m going to go take a shower, you just lay here.”

Dan laid in the bed, still frozen, for a moment and watched Phil practically sashay into the bathroom before scrambling to his feet and following him.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dan was a great boyfriend, and Phil loved him more than words could say. He was clever and kind, loud and loving, brilliant and beautiful. He enriched Phil’s life and improved it in ways neither of them would probably ever fully understand. Phil adored him and wouldn’t give him up for the world.

That being said, he was shit at wake up calls.

“Come on, Phillip,” he sang, making sure to pop the “p” right in Phil’s ear. He was currently bouncing up and down on his knees on the bed right by Phil’s side, and had started his routine by re-creating a video to the Numa Numa Song.

And some people thought romance was dead.

“Please,” Phil whined, shoving his face under his pillow. Maybe if he pressed down hard enough he’d pass out and Dan would quit trying to get him out of bed. “Please just let me sleep I beg.”

Dan had the audacity to snort and even though Phil couldn’t see him he knew Dan had just rolled his eyes. “You wish. They serve breakfast in the gardens and if you think I’m going to miss out on posting the most aesthetic instagrams of eggs benedict ever then you’re dead wrong. Louise is in Venice and we have a bet on who can post the best pictures this weekend.”

“Can’t you just go by yourself?”

Dan snorts, and Phil takes a hot second to be a bit offended before Dan dug his knees into Phil’s side, quite effectively forcing him out of bed. When he was on his feet he turned and scowled at Dan who just beamed up at him. “Oh, good, you’re out of bed,” he had the audacity to chirp. “There’s a breakfast being served in the garden if you’re interested.”

Phil huffed, but he was already awake and out of bed, so there was no real point in denying it any more. “Sure, Dan. That sounds great. Let me get dressed and we can head down,” he yawned, making his way to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

“Don’t forget, I’m posting pictures, and you’re going to be in them,” Dan called after him. “Wear that bird shirt you got for the BONCAS.”

“I don’t think I packed that. Did I?”

“You didn’t,” he conceded, “but I put it in there when you weren’t looking.”

Phil stuck his head out of the bathroom and looked rather unimpressed and rumpled. “So, you’re telling me that you didn’t have enough time to pack your own suitcase, but you had enough time to make sure I had the specific shirt you wanted for your aesthetic breakfast photoshoot?”

“Every man has his priorities, Phil.” Dan grinned when he heard a soft “You’re impossible” that he probably wasn’t supposed to hear. “Hey, make sure you wear your glasses. Everyone thinks you look amazing in them and it will also help the ‘relaxed but posh’ vibe I’m going for.”

Phil shook his head and chuckled but did as he was ordered, and stepped out of the bathroom freshened up and bespectacled. He stepped in between Dan’s knees to press a kiss to his forehead, to which Dan responded with a soft, happy hum. “You know, we’re spending the weekend at a bed and breakfast in a castle. I don’t think you can get any more aesthetic than that.”

“Louise is in Venice,” Dan reminded him. “It doesn’t matter where we are, I’m going to have stiff competition.”

“I offered to take you to Venice before.” Phil would absolutely refuse to admit he was pouting, even under oath.

Dan rested his arms over Phil’s shoulders and beamed. “Yeah, and I still stand by my decision to stay at home.”  
  


“What’s the point of having all this money if you won’t even let me spend it on you?”

“Aw, do you want to be my sugar daddy, Phil? I didn’t know you were into that.”

Phil sputtered, embarrassed, while Dan giggled at him. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he whined.

“Yeah, but you’re fun to rile up,” Dan agreed, pecking him on the nose. “Now, get dressed. We’re going to be late.”

Phil hummed and did as he was told and before long he and Dan were headed down to the grounds hand in hand. “It really is a beautiful morning,” Phil said, breathing in the sweet summer air. He knew it would get hot later, but it was still early enough that the dew was clinging to the grass and the cool of night was still lingering.

Dan closed his eyes and lifted his face towards the soft periwinkle sky. “Yeah, it really is.”

Phil tore his eyes away from the scenery to stare at the man stood next to him. He had known Daniel Howell for eight years and he still managed to steal his breath on a regular basis. He thought again (it had been happening with almost concerning frequency as of late) of the small, black box hidden away in their flat in London. “Come on, we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”

Dan hummed happily and took another moment to soak in the morning sun. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”

The garden was almost magical in the soft morning light. Each place setting was decorated with flowers picked fresh from the bushes that enclosed the few little tables around. There were already people at all of the tables, but Dan made eye contact with one lady who was sitting alone, and she smiled and waved them over. Dan tugged Phil behind him as he gave the woman a second glance over. Her most distinctive feature was her long, dark purple hair that seemed to sparkle with its own light, and the matching stars she had painted on each of her cheeks. She looked younger than Dan but something in her eyes glinted with something Dan couldn’t quite name. “Won’t you two please sit?” she asked politely, gesturing to the chairs on the other side of the little round table.

“Are you waiting for anyone?” Dan asked as he and Phil sat.

“Me? Oh, no, I’m here alone,” she said. “I actually work here, but sometimes I like to partake in some of the activities we have around here.”

“What is it you do?” Phil asked.

“I run the tourist department; you know, the website and social media for the castle.”

Phil perked up at that. “Then you were probably the one who talked to my brother! He said he worked on your website recently. Martyn Lester?”

The woman brightened and smiled. “Yes, I did speak with him. That means the two of you must be Dan and Phil.” When the two men exchanged confused glances she laughed softly. “Martyn spoke very highly of the both of you, and told me you were going to be his plus two. Forgive my rudeness, my name is Estella Farfalla, but most people just call me Stella.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure meeting you, Stella.”

“And you two as well.”

The conversation was briefly interrupted by a waiter asking for their drink orders followed shortly by him coming back to serve their breakfast. Phil went to dig in, but Dan gently smacked his elbow to remind him of the pictures he was meant to take. Stella watched in amusement as they took turns photographing each other and their food and the scenery until Dan was satisfied that he would be able to find and post a picture that would knock Louise’s socks off.

“So, you said you work here,” Phil said while Dan agonized over what filter to use. “Do you have any recommendations? We want to get the full experience.”

“Well, as luck would have it I actually started as a tour guide here so I know pretty much everything about this place.” She drummed her fingers on her chin as she looked them over. “I’m guessing you two haven’t gone on the tour yet. Correct?”

“Not yet,” Dan admitted. “We only just got in last night, and we went to dinner then straight to bed.”

She nodded. “Well, the tour is all inside so wait until this afternoon, since it will be raining then.”  
  
Dan frowned. “The weather report said it was supposed to be clear all weekend.”

She shot him a mischievous grin. “Maybe I know something the weatherman doesn’t.”

“What are you psychic or something?”

She winked and tapped the side of her nose, and Phil looked about like he was going to burst with delight. “Are you, really?” he demanded. “What is it you do, exactly? Tarot or tea reading? I’ve dabbled in that before, but I doubt I’m actually any good at it.”

“You never know. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential, Phil.” She turned to Dan who looked markedly less impressed. “And what about you? Any interest in the preternatural?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, last time I had anything to do with fortune telling I had a banana shoved down the back of my neck, so no thanks.”

Stella looked amused, like he had said exactly what she had known he’d say. “You know, I had a feeling you’d feel that way.” Dan rose an incredulous eyebrow so she finally answered Phil’s question. “I do astrology. I decided to lean fully into the whole star theme, you see?”

Phil chuckled. “So, do you check the stars for the weather every day or was this a coincidence?”

“Not normally, no. I just knew something important was meant to happen this weekend, so I decided to check last night.”  
  


“Any hints on what the big deal this weekend is?”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t,” she said with a coy smile. “I find that most people start meddling where they shouldn’t when they learn too much.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait, then. I hope I don’t miss it.”

“Oh, I doubt that will be possible.”

Phil was about to ask what exactly she meant by that, but was interrupted by their waiter coming back. He whisked away their plates and glasses only to replace them with a couple serving plates of cakes and other post breakfast sweets. Dan was delighted and immediately proceeded to take just as many pictures of this food as he did the previous course. When Phil looked up after the final picture was taken, he saw Stella’s empty chair, looking like it had never been occupied. “She was nice,” he said to Dan. “A little odd, but still really nice.”

“You only thought she was nice because you were hoping she’d read your palm,” Dan teased. “Besides, she was obviously a fake. I mean, come on. Rain? Today? This is the most sun I’ve seen in years.”

At that exact moment a fat raindrop fell directly on the end of Dan’s nose, causing him to cross his eyes to get a good look at it. Phil snickered into his hand while Dan wiped his nose with slightly pink cheeks.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dan glared out the window of their room in abject horror. He was beyond angry. He had checked no less than four different weather updates and they all called for the exact same thing. Hot, but not unbearably so, and sunny. With the A/C in the castle this weekend should have been absolutely perfect. But no. Right now it was pouring rain so hard he could see about ten metres before it was too dark. He checked the weather again. Sure enough, there was still a happy little sun falsely claiming that it was partly cloudy.

“Seriously, what the fuck?” he growled, turning to Phil who was sat cross-legged on their bed towel drying his hair after they were caught outside.

Phil shrugged. “You know how the weather here is. I would personally find a weekend of perfect weather more unbelievable than a surprise storm.”

“It’s not even storming,” Dan groused. “There hasn’t been any thunder or anything, it’s just a fuckload of rain.”

Phil grinned and lassoed Dan with his towel and pulled him closer. He started gently scrubbing at Dan’s sopping curls, ignoring the weak protests. “You’re just mad because what’s-her-name was right.”

“Her name was Stella and I still think she was a phoney. People aren’t actually psychic, babe.”

“Tell that to the rain.”

“Lucky guess. Like you said, it’s always raining here.”

Phil uncovered Dan’s face and placed a kiss on his scowling brow. “Psychic or no, it is raining and I think a tour would be a lot of fun. Change your clothes and we can go look around. We can kill a couple hours and maybe by then the rain will clear and we’ll get to go do the maze.”

Dan was still very clearly pouting, but did as he was told and started rummaging in his case to find new clothes while Phil did the same. When they were both dressed, Dan grinned and offered an arm to Phil, who rolled his eyes fondly but took it nevertheless. They went downstairs, only to see a rather familiar face at the foot of the stairs.

“Martyn!” Phil said happily, letting go of Dan to clasp his brother’s hand. “You and Cornelia about to do the tour?”

“Yeah. Bummer about this rain, though. We were about to go try our hand at archery.” He shrugged. “We were lucky enough to still be inside when it started pouring. Crazy weather, eh?”

“Yeah, me and Dan were still in the gardens when it started.”

“Well, you two want to join me and Corny? Come on, there’s someone I want to introduce you to.” Martyn led them to the front desk where purple eyes regarded them with thinly veiled amusement. “Guys, this is Estella Farfalla. She’s the person I worked with, and she’s the one who got us access this weekend.”

“I’m pleased to say we’ve already made our acquaintance,” Stella said brightly, handing over the guided tours. “We met at breakfast in the gardens this morning.”

“You’re telling me these two woke up for breakfast?” Cornelia mock gasped.

Dan gave her a mildly dirty look while Stella just laughed. “Yes, we had a lovely time. Are you two about to do the tour as well?”

“Yeah, the four of us are going to give the place a walk around,” Martyn said. “Well, I guess if you three have already met , there’s no point in delaying. Come on, you two.”

“Oh, there is one more thing!” Stella said urgently. “The tour has you going into King Henry’s room about halfway through, but I recommend waiting until the very end. That room is always my favourite.”

“Thanks for the tip!” Martyn beamed. “Well, see you around!”

“Good bye! Enjoy your tour!”

Together they left the front desk and started their tour. As usual, there was a room full of paintings from the Tudor era, along with some sculptures and furniture. Fuck man, idk how to appreciate art. Last time I was in a museum I liked this one exhibit because they all looked like TOS Star Trek props. My favourite piece of art is a pair of wings made out of spoons. Fuck. I could really really use your help here.

What Dan found far more interesting was the room full of miniature towns and houses. They were all in their little display cases and he rather enjoyed peering down on them in their little homes living their little lives. Or, well they weren’t living their lives, but they sure looked like they could as soon as his back was turned. Suddenly, his phone let out a chirp, informing him that someone had tweeted. Without thinking, he pulled it out and swiped to see the Tweet. It was from Phil, and it was a picture of him Phil had taken without asking of him looking at the miniature buildings.

@AmazingPhil: Sorry guys. This is how tall Dan really is. We just use editing tricks to make him look like a normal human. Real-not-a-model-town for scale

Dan cut his eyes at Phil who was grinning like he thought he’d told the best joke of the century. “When are you going to stop taking secret creeper pictures of me?”

“When you stop being the most beautiful thing in the room,” Phil said smoothly, but Dan just rolled his eyes. “Besides, you posted pictures at breakfast, I needed to post something.”

Dan hummed. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Come on, I think we were abandoned.”

They walked hand in hand past the room set up to look like King Edward’s bedchambers for about the third time, as Stella had recommended, and into the drawing room where Cornelia and Martyn were. Cornelia came up to them with a cheerful bounce to her step. “Looks like the rain cleared up. Would you two be interested in coming with us to the lake?”

“Nah, I think we’ll finish up the tour,” Dan said. “Besides, it’s kind of late, so we’re probably going to head up to the room afterwards.”

“Suit yourself,” Cornelia said with a shrug. “This isn’t really my thing, but the lake is supposed to be beautiful. If we run into each other I’ll tell you if it’s worth the walk. See you!” With a jaunty wave, she and Martyn left, and Dan turned back to Phil, who was investigating a painting. Dan was fairly sure it was a dog, but it was a little too… abstract for him to say with any confidence, so he stayed silent.

“So, what do you think it is?” Well, he had planned on staying silent.

Dan pondered the question and the painting as he stepped up next to Phil. “I, um, I think it’s a dog?”

“That’s what I was thinking, but it could very easily be an alien in a fursuit if you ask me. We should buy a print and put it in the lounge.”

“Why stop at the lounge? Let’s put one in every room.”

“Wallpaper the flat with it.”

“Cover the furniture with specially made fabric with it printed on it.”

Phil chuckled lowly and gently bumped their shoulders together. “You win. Come on, I think this dog-alien wants me to have its babies.”

“You’re so fucking weird.”

“You love it.”

Finally, after wandering the halls for over two hours, they allowed themselves to go into King Henry’s room.

Only to be disappointed.

Phil frowned as he looked around. Sure, it was all very pretty and incredibly well taken care of, but the rest of the rooms had done that as well, some even better. Phil personally would have made the tour end in the room with the costumed figures all about Anne Boleyn. Sure the not-mannequins were kind of creepy and always looked like they were staring at him, but at least they were interesting. And since it was Anne Boleyn’s house it kind of made sense for her room to be the main attraction, right? This room, just had nothing special. It had the bed and the curtains and art, but other than a grand floor to ceiling mirror against the wall, there was nothing remarkable about it at all.

“Am I the only one feeling cheated?” Dan asked on a whisper. “I was expecting a bit more, to be honest.”

“Me, too. I mean, I get that it’s her favourite, but I don’t see why. This is just a really fancy bedroom.”

Dan snorted. “Let’s at least get a look at this mirror, yeah?” Without waiting for a response, Dan walked over to stand in front of it. His reflection was vaguely distorted, but he couldn’t exactly put his finger on how. It didn’t make him wider or taller or darker or lighter or rippled in any way, he just looked wrong. “Phil, you have to come look at this.”

“I am.”

Dan looked next to his reflection, and sure enough, Phil was there. He was also distorted, but Dan could clearly see that he was paler with a weird green tinge. “It makes your reflection look weird. I don’t know how or why but- holy shit, Phil, are you okay?” The mirror hadn’t actually changed his reflection much at all, Phil just looked incredibly ill. “What happened?”

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Phil said, shuddering. “I just walked over here and suddenly-” He cut himself off with a groan, clutching his head. “Let’s- Can we just go to the room?”

“Yeah, of course,” Dan said softly. He wrapped his arm around Phil’s waist like he would break in half at the slightest pressure and led him back up to their room. When Phil was laid down, Dan went about closing all the curtains and getting a cold rag from the bathroom. He quietly pulled a chair up next to the bed and started petting Phil’s head and wiping away sweat. “Feel any better?” he asked softly.

Phil gave a full-body shudder and curled deeper in the blanket, but when he smiled up at Dan it was as warm and bright as it always was. “I’ll survive, I think,” he joked. “You don’t have to stay in here with me, you know. You could go hang out with Martyn and Cornelia by the lake.”

“What and get third-wheeled so hard I fly into the sun?” Dan snorted. His smile softened as he looked down at Phil who was blinking slower and slower. “I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”

Phil chuckled weakly, and opened his arms. “You know I don’t. I’d mind even less if you got in bed, too.” Dan grinned and crawled into the space made for him and wrapped his arms around Phil in return. He pressed their foreheads together and they just laid there, sharing air for a while before Phil said, “Sorry I ruined your afternoon.”

Dan pulled back just enough to raise his eyebrows and give him a Look™ which caused Phil to giggle. “That’s such a ridiculous thing for you to say that I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Phil yawned, pulling them closer together. “Sleep now.”

“We’re going to hate ourselves in the morning if we don’t change out of these skinny jeans,” Dan grinned.

“I’ll hate you right now if you get out of this bed.”

Dan’s smile widened so much he feared his cheeks would split. “Alright, but you have to take full responsibility for any and all misery in the morning, got it?”

They slept through the night, Dan remarkably more soundly. All through the night Phil was tossing and turning

“Still not feeling good?” Dan asked the next morning, biting his lip and running his fingers through Phil’s fringe. Phil just groaned quietly and pulled the duvet over his head. “Alright, that’s it, we’re going home.”

“That’s silly, Dan,” Phil protested. “I’m sure it will go away in a couple hours or so.”

“Yeah, sorry, no. You were struck with a weird, sudden illness for no known reason and you didn’t sleep it off. We’re going home and you’re going to the doctor tomorrow. I’m calling Martyn now.”

Phil sighed, but knew that arguing at this point in Dan’s decision making process would just make both of them frustrated. “Fine, we can go home, but I’m not going to the doctor unless this lasts through tomorrow.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Sure, fine. I don’t want a boyfriend anyway, so just let yourself die of some random disease. See if I care. Hey, Martyn, listen-”

Phil groaned and rolled out of bed, ignoring Dan’s sharp glare. Fortunately, Dan had packed away most of their stuff at some point, so Phil just kind of puttered around gathering their smaller stuff while Dan made phone calls. Dan was over reacting, as per usual. Even just this little bit of getting up and moving was making him feel so much better. He was practically at one hundred percent. Oh, or maybe he wasn’t. He slowly straightened from where he had bent in half to pick up a sock, clutching his head. Okay, so maybe not one hundred percent, but it was definitely better than last night.

“Okay, everything is set up,” Dan said, clapping his hands. “The car will be here in about a half hour and our train tickets have been changed. Do you want me to go downstairs and see if I can find us some food?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Want me to come with you?”

Dan pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Nah, I’m good. I’ll be back up in a bit.” And with that he was gone.

Phil groaned and flopped back on the bed, closing his eyes. Staring at the back of his eyelids, Phil started thinking about his dream from last night. Usually, it was just the feeling of flying and some blurry pictures, but last night it was different. It had the flying, but it also had a very strong feeling of claustrophobia and for some reason all his muscles hurt. Also, everything was pitch black, and he couldn’t even make out vague shapes, which didn’t help the claustrophobia. However, the most worrisome part was Dan. Usually, Dan’s presence in the dream was just a soft, fond constant, but last night some part of his brain was convinced Dan was either dead or dying.

Just then, Dan waltzed back in, carrying two plates of various breakfast pastries, and Phil dropped all thoughts on his dream in favor of grabbing a muffin. Maybe he’d ask Dan about it when they got home

*_*_*_*_*

The first thought Dan had after waking up was that they really needed a new bed. His second thought was how they had just bought a new bed the other month and that there hadn’t been any problem with the new mattress. His third thought was wondering why the bed was so spiky.

His fourth thought was realizing the bed was breathing.

Dan threw himself to his feet and whirled around to see a giant, black dragon curled up and blinking at him with scared, blue eyes. Naturally, Dan did what any sane person would do after coming face to face with a real, live dragon. He screamed as long and loud as his lungs could manage. The dragon shrank back at the sound, flattening its ears back and hissing like a cat. When Dan was done screaming, and realized that the dragon wasn’t going to eat him just yet, he took a deep breath and looked around, trying to keep himself from hyperventilating. It looked like he was in a cave, alone other than the dragon laying on a pile of gold.

Phil. Where was Phil? He had to find Phil. Phil would know what to do. Well, he wouldn’t actually know what to do, but Dan would rather face a dragon with him than on his own. He cast a wary glance at the dragon and stuttered, “Did- did you eat my boyfriend?”

The dragon looked weirdly amused and frustrated at the question, but shook its head no.

“Oh, uh, do you know where he is?”

A nod.

“Can you, like, show me?”

The dragon made a face that looked like it would be biting its lower lip in thought is it had lips. Suddenly, it jerked its head down towards its chest and looked up at Dan expectantly.

“You said you didn’t eat him!” Dan said, feeling weirdly betrayed.

The dragon let out a very frustrated sigh, filling the entire cave with smoke, and surprising both of them. When Dan was done waving the smoke out of his face the dragon looked him right in the eye again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard something that sounded like Phil’s voice urgently saying _Listen!_ Without breaking eye contact, the dragon lifted one front leg and pointed it at Dan. Then it pointed it at itself, thumping the foot against its chest twice. It looked at Dan again, but when he just looked confused it sighed and did it again. And again.

Halfway through the fourth time, a horrifying realization washed over Dan. “ _Phil_?”

The dragon trilled its delight, raising up as far as it could on its back legs and flames danced in its mouth. It heavily fell back on its front feet and shoved its snout right into Dan’s gut, making him fold in half and lay heavily on its face.

From this position, Dan could look into its eyes more clearly. Yeah, those were Phil’s. “Oh my god,” he breathed, clutching tight to his boyfriend’s now scaly face. “What _happened_ to you? Where are we? What the fuck?”

Phil huffed and jerked his snout a little bit to get Dan to stand back on his own free will. When he saw Dan was standing he fell back down on his belly with a loud _thump_ and covered his face with his front feet.

Dan was suddenly struck with familiarity, thinking about how just two mornings ago Phil had done that exact same action when Dan had tried to force him out of bed for breakfast. He grinned weakly and, trying to lighten the mood, said, “Honestly, you’re a bit of a giant, fire-breathing, scaly beast when you wake up in the mornings, anyway. You’re basically the same.” However, at the baleful, slightly hurt look Phil shot him, he winced. “Okay, that may have been in poor taste.”

**Yeah, it was, you dick.**

Dan froze and looked at Phil curiously. That was not the normal voice in his head. “Did you just call me a dick?”

Phil snorted and rolled his eyes. **I wish I could; you deserve it.**

“You did it again!” Phil cocked his head as Dan started pacing back and forth, tapping his finger to his lip. Suddenly he stopped and whirled around, pointing at Phil. “Quick, right now. Think about saying something to me.”

**The only thing I can think about is how you look like a massive prat.**

“You just called me a prat! Also, stop calling me names.”

Phil’s eyes widened comically then narrowed. **I’ve secretly been using your cereal to train the pigeons to do a dance routine on our balcony.**

“I’ve secretly been using your cereal to train the pigeons to do a dance routine on our balcony,” Dan repeated in his best mimicry of Phil’s voice.

Phil reared his head back in shock. **DAN, CAN YOU HEAR ME?** he thought as loud as he could.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s necessary. It feels like you’ve just shouted directly in both of my ears,” Dan winced, rubbing his ears. He suddenly stopped rubbing them, and ran a shaking finger over the top ridge up and up and up. They were nearly 20 centimeters and ended in a soft tuft of fur. “Phil, I don’t mean to alarm you, but there’s something wrong with my ears.”

Phil winced sympathetically. Yeah, I noticed that as soon as I woke up. I would have said something, but we were a little occupied. You look a bit like a bunny, as they’ve been waving around this whole time.

Now that he was aware of them, Dan felt his ears stick straight up in alarm. He immediately tried to grab them and pull them down, but stopped when he realized that hurt quite a bit and released them. “What the actual fuck is going on here.”

Maybe this isn’t the best time to tell you you’re grey with white hair, then?

Dan darted his eyes around the cave until they rested on a jewel-encrusted hand mirror which he picked up to examine himself. Sure enough, his skin was a smooth, light purple-grey and his long, white hair was pulled back into a braid. Even his eyes had changed, and instead of a brown iris the whole of his eye was a very pale lilac. And of course the fucking ears, which he now noticed were decorated with a line of mismatched earrings up both sides. He turned around to complain, but once again saw the giant lizard that had once been his boyfriend and decided he didn’t have much room. “Well, not as bad as it could be, I suppose. I really match my aesthetic now.”

Phil looked at him sadly for a moment before he very suddenly started changing shape until the Phil Dan knew and loved was sat on the pile of gold. Or well, a very reptilian version of the Phil he knew and loved. Regardless, he now had arms and legs and looked very hug-able, so that’s exactly what Dan did. “What the fuck just happened?” Dan asked, squeezing Phil even tighter, ignoring the spikes that were digging into every part of the front half of his body.

“I don’t know,” Phil answered, and Dan had to repress a shudder. Gone was Phil’s warm baritone, now replaced with a cold, high hissing voice. “I was just thinking about how I wished I was a little more human-shaped because you looked like you needed a hug.”

Dan barked out a laugh and pulled away. “ _I_ needed a hug? You were literally a story-book style dragon a half second ago. I’m pretty sure you’re the one who needed a hug.”

“Well, yeah, I definitely needed one, but you did, too.”

Dan just shook his head and chuckled. “Yeah, I kind of did. Come on, let’s maybe get out of this cave.”

Turning on his heel, Dan marched through the cave tunnel, only to find himself in another cave that was flooded with sunlight from the wide opening looking out over the sea. Immediately, he clutched his hands over his eyes and stumbled back into the dark, leaning on Phil for support. “My eyes, my eyes, my eyes,” he chanted over and over, ears folded back as far as they could go. When his eyes quit feeling like they were about to burn out of his skull, he blinked them open to see Phil giving him a rather intimidating smirk full of fangs.

“Well, I’d say the aversion to sunlight is new, but we both know that’s not the case.,” he joked, eyes still very sympathetic.

Dan opened his mouth to snark back, but was interrupted by a voice in his head. It was similar to Phil’s but more like his new form’s voice. **Can you hear me?** “Yeah, I can hear you, Phil. We went over this.”

Phil’s forehead wrinkled and shifted under the scales. “What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you thought it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Dan frowned. “I guess maybe I was imagining it? I mean, I thought it was really clear, but a lot’s been happening, so I could have very easily invented it.”

“Yeah, that makes the most sense. Unless you think there’s some other telepath around here trying to talk to you.”

“Well, we can’t rule it out. I mean, you’re a giant, fire-breathing lizard. As far as I’m concerned, all bets are off.”

**Daniel, is that you?**

Dan narrowed his eyes in a glare at Phil. He definitely didn’t imagine that, and it was definitely Phil’s voice. “You rat, you just did it again!”

Phil hummed. “Have you tried talking back?”

“No, I can talk to you aloud.”

“Yeah, but that’s not me.”

Dan bit his lower lip for a second. “Yeah, alright, I’ll give it a shot next time they say something.” There was a tense silence for a moment before the voice came through again, clearer than ever. **If you can hear me, give me a signal.** Closing his eyes and thinking very hard, Dan did his best to transmit one word back.

**Hello?**

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil was immediately aware of five things upon waking up.

  1. He was in a humanoid form when he knew he had gone to sleep in his beast form.
  2. He wasn’t on his hoard.
  3. He was rather warm, which meant he wasn’t in his cave at all.
  4. Daniel was snoring. Daniel doesn’t snore.
  5. Daniel was taller than him.



Philip shot straight up and searched his surroundings for any form of danger. It didn’t appear that they were in any imminent danger, but there were several things he didn’t understand. He didn’t have his tail, wings or tail, and no matter how hard he focused he couldn’t morph those or any other dragon features to himself. Daniel was lying in bed, still asleep, but instead of his usual lavender grey color, he was a pale pinkish color and his ears were short and round. His surroundings baffled him so much that he couldn’t even begin to describe what was happening. He quickly nudged Dan and hissed, “Wake up,” and cringed at the lower tenor that sounded so foreign on his tongue.

Daniel was instantly awake and surveying the scene much like Phil had done moments ago. He turned to Philip, brow furrowed and snapped, “What’s going on? Why can’t I see or hear anything?”

“Everything is blurry for you, too, then?” Philip asked, feeling slightly relieved.

Daniel frowned and shook his head. “No, I can still see plenty clear, I just can’t see as well as normal. Why, is everything blurry for you?”

Philip growled to himself, and knew that it he had his tail it would be lashing so much that he’d probably destroy the bed they were sat on. “Yes. I can see clearly to just past the end of my nose and everything gets progressively blurrier from there. I can’t even see your face clearly.”

Daniel was still for a moment before he snapped his fingers and dove for what Philip assumed was a bedside table and started digging around. “Yes! Found it.” He handed Philip something and urged him to put it on his face. “You see, these bits go over your ears and the glass sits across your nose in front of your eyes.”

Philip reared back, blinking rapidly to try and get accustomed to the fact that he could once again see. Like Daniel said, he couldn’t see as much as before, but he could at least function like this. Now that he could actually see, he looked around again and found himself just as, if not more, confused than before. They were definitely in some kind of room, but it was unlike anything he had seen before. Everything looked impossibly soft, while still having sharp, unforgiving lines. In addition, there were several things around that seemed to glow with their own source of light, but Philip couldn’t sense any magic coming from them. In fact, he couldn’t sense any magic _anywhere_.

Daniel watched Philip’s strangely human face as he observed the room and came to the same conclusions Daniel himself had already come to. They weren’t anywhere even resembling home anymore. There was no magical energy in the air whatsoever, and the place in the back of his mind where his connection to Philip usually lived was uncomfortably void. He slowly made his way to the window across from the bed, carelessly knocking aside some potted plants to look out below. Like he feared, the scene below was almost identical to the one he’d seen in his vision from the mirror.

He turned to Philip who was looking at him almost suspiciously. “I think I know what’s happening,” he said slowly, sitting back down on the end of the bed.

Philip raised an eyebrow, a skill Daniel knew was unique to this world as dragons didn’t have eyebrows. “Well? Go on then.”

“It’s that damn mirror’s fault,” Daniel started. “When I was looking at it before I got a series of visions that looked exactly like this. Everything, the road, the artifacts, even the two of us. Something happened with that mirror that got us in this situation, I just know it.”

Philip drummed his fingertips against his chin in thought. “Well, it stands to reason that if we’re here then whoever was here is where we were. Yes?”

Daniel frowned. “I mean, I suppose that makes sense. Do you think there’s any way we can contact them?” He suddenly snapped his fingers and grinned. “Telepathy. Do you think there’s still a chance we could be psychically linked to each other in our world?”

“We could be,” Philip said slowly. “We could try meditating with a focus on our pre-established link.” He let out a deep, calming breath, folded his legs beneath him, and closed his eyes to meditate. It was… hard. He didn’t normally spend his time in meditation at all, so he wasn’t in practice, but he knew more intimately what exactly it was he was looking for within his own mind. The bond he shared with Daniel was non-existent in this world which affected him more than he would have previously assumed. He found his thoughts once again wandering to the fact that he would surely outlive Daniel, should they ever get back to their own world. If just losing the link left his mind cold and bereft, what would losing Daniel himself do? _Focus_ he hissed at his own thoughts.

That’s when he heard it. It was faint, and sounded more like his own voice than Daniel’s, but it was there, and talking about- He shook his head and focused again. Why was this new not-his voice talking about cereal and pigeons? He listened in more closely, the words becoming clearer and clearer, before they suddenly stopped. Philip could tell he was still connected as he still felt the same buzz he always got when he was speaking through a psychic link. Taking a deep, calming breath, he focused again and tried to send out a message.

**Can you hear me?**

There was a short spark of confusion from down the line, but it quickly fizzled out and the connection went dead. Philip growled in frustration and broke out of his meditation to see Daniel looking at him curiously. “Did that go any better for you than it did for me?”

“Depends on how well it went for you,” Philip huffed. “I managed to get one message through I think, but whoever is on the other end just closed off the link before I could get a response.”

“Well, you’re doing better,” Daniel said. “I don’t know what it was but I’m pretty sure I managed to find the link but it was like shouting at a wall.”

“Whoever it is is probably shielding, in that case,” Philip reasoned. “A dragon’s mind is usually shut down to people trying to get in and unless you know what you’re doing it can be hard to receive anything. We can send out messages and look into other people’s minds, but anyone, particularly a psy-null person, trying to send something to an untrained dragon? It’s practically impossible.”

Daniel gave him a sour look. “That would have been really great information to have _before_ I spent twenty minutes trying to get into a dragon’s brain.”

“It could have been different with you,” Philip defended. “You know we already have a link so I was hoping that would give you a secondary entrance.”

Daniel sighed deeply. “Well, I guess it didn’t. You seemed to be doing okay, though, so have another go at it. There’s no other options, the way I see it.”

Philip nodded and closed his eyes again. Thankfully, this time he fell into the meditation easily and rooted around in his mind until he found the connection again. **Daniel, is that you?** More confusion, and maybe a little anger flared up this time, but the connection stayed strong. Philip waited for several minutes to see if whoever he was talking to would answer, but when he got nothing he sent out **If you can hear me, give me a signal.** Then it happened. It was soft and weak and unsure like whoever was sending it wasn’t quite sure what they were doing.

**Hello?**

Philip’s eyes snapped open, but he held tight to the link. At Daniel’s silent, but urgent motions he continued the conversation. **Is this Daniel?**

**Yeah. Don’t get called Daniel all that often, though.**

**Then you are not my Daniel. Correct?**

**Well, I think that depends quite a bit on who you are.**

Philip smiled softly. Some things, like Daniel’s attitude, were a constant across all worlds. **My name is Philip.**

**But you’re not my Phil, are you?**

**I think that depends quite a bit on who you are.**

Philip heard what was basically the mental equivalent of a heavy sigh. **Okay, my name is Dan Howell. I’m a human YouTuber who lives with my boyfriend Phil Lester in London, England, year 2017. Now, who are you?**

**I am Philip. I’m a dragon who lives in a cave near Birnbeck, Umbria along with my charge a drow named Daniel.**

**I’m guessing that’s why I’m grey?**

**That would be a good assumption.**

“Have you gotten through?” Daniel hissed quietly. “What’s happening? You just keep making faces.”

“I’ve gotten through to someone called Dan,” Philip reported. “He’s a human who lives with his Philip in a place called London.”

“Is he with this other Philip?” Daniel demanded. “If he is, teach him how to communicate with me. I’m sick of just sitting here.”

Philip rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. **Dan, is this Phil you speak of with you?**

**Yeah.**

**Then you need to tell him to let down his shields so that Daniel may speak with him.**

**I don’t even know what that means.**

**He will know instinctively. Just tell him to open his mind.**

There was a moment’s pause, assumingly while the other two were speaking, and then the link flared to life again, this time with an extra participant. Apparently, once his shields were dropped, Phil’s mind linked automatically with Dan’s via the pre-established bond. A new voice, gratingly similar to his own, but different cautiously said, **Hello?**

**Are you the one Dan calls Phil?**

**Yes.**

**Then I am Philip. Focus on keeping your mind open until Daniel can reach you and take control.**

Philip opened his eyes and said, “His mind is open, if you’re going to do this, do it now.” Daniel nodded, and closed his eyes and once again the link flared, this time much weaker.

**Can everyone hear me?**

That was Daniel’s voice. His Daniel’s voice. **You are weak, but I hear you.**

 **I can hear you** , Dan thought.

 **Me too.** That one was Phil. **Okay, so if you two are me and Dan, do either of you know what’s going on?**

 **I think it’s got something to do with this mirror Philip and I found,** Daniel explained. **When I looked into it I saw visions of this world and fell ill.**

 **This mirror, can you tell me more about it?** Phil asked. **Was it floor to ceiling, ornate, kind of gaudy, in a castle?**

Philip cracked open one eye to see Daniel scowling in confusion. **Yes, it was. How did you know?**

**Dan and I found a mirror just like it night before last. I didn’t get any visions, but it did make me super ill, and that seemed like a bit too much of a coincidence.**

**Well, that’s the answer then, isn’t it?** Daniel reasoned. **If this mirror got us into this mess, it can get us out.**

 **Where was this castle you two found?** Dan asked. **Ours is in Hever castle, you can Google it to see what the tours cost.**

Philip froze, and furrowed his brow in confusion. **Google?**

**Shit. Phil, how do I explain Google to someone who doesn’t even know what a computer is?**

**Oh, um, it’s like a library, but for all the information in the entire world.**

**Yeah, but not all of it is true.**

**Yes, well, you describe it better.**

**How about neither of you describe it and you just tell us how to use it?** Daniel intervened impatiently.

 **Okay, first you need to get one of our laptops,** Dan started. Before either Daniel or Philip could point out that they had no idea what that was he continued, **It’s the thin, silver thing with a picture of a white apple in the middle of it. It looks like a really flat book and it should be on my desk.**

Philip did as he was told and found what he was at least hoping was this “laptop.” **Okay, now what?**

**Open it and type in the password. It’s going to be “hello darkness” with no space. When that finishes getting started use the bottom half of the square on the lower half to click on the little yellow, green, and red circle at the bottom of the screen.**

Philip looked almost helplessly at Daniel. “Do you have any idea what he’s saying?”

“Not really, but maybe it will make more sense as we go,” Daniel shrugged, taking the device. “Okay, so we can do the password thing.” He slowly and carefully hit each key, and startled a bit when the picture suddenly changed to something from the depths of the cosmos. He scanned the picture for the circle Dan spoke of, and finally found it on the bottom row with several other small pictures. After a bit of mental arguing with Dan he managed to get his “cursor” on the circle and click on it.

Okay, now you’re on a site called “Google.” You can just type words into the bar in the middle of screen and it will take you to other sites that will tell you about it.

Daniel glanced up at Philip and sighed. This was going to take a long time.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

A couple hours of wasting their lives and Googling everything they could think of, Daniel and Philip found themselves in a train station waiting for their ride. It was incredibly crowded and full of people paying hardly any attention to their wallets, and Daniel’s fingers were itching. It had been months since he’d done a good, old fashioned pick pocket. Sure, the big heists he and Philip pulled off on a regular basis were fun and lucrative, but there was something special about taking someone’s possessions right out from under their nose without them noticing.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Philip said casually, purveying the scene as well. Daniel knew from experience that he was looking for exits and anyone he couldn’t take in a fight. Unfortunately, in these incredibly weak bodies, that narrowed it down to pretty much everyone. “In this world we’re public figures, but not wanted criminals. I doubt it would look good if Dan Howell suddenly went to prison for taking someone’s bag.”

Ah, yes, Dan and Phil’s fame. Philip had had the bright idea to Google Dan and Phil, and they were slightly horrified at what they found. Aside from learning that in this world Dan and Phil were in a publicly known romantic relationship (Daniel had side eyed Philip and thought about wooing his centuries old, fire breathing lizard of a best friend. He’d shuddered and quickly stopped thinking about it.) they learned that Dan and Phil were _role models_. Daniel thought of the time Philip had left a man buried to the neck at low tide just because he didn’t laugh at the dragon’s pun. Or the time a knight had actually made it into their lair and Philip had practically cooed in delight before playing cat and mouse with the fighter for hours until she’d dropped to her knees and started sobbing and Daniel made Philip take pity on her and eat her. Yeah, Philip was not the innocent sunshine flower child the people of this world were expecting.

“We’re not telepathically linked anymore; you don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I don’t need to be psychic; it’s all over your face. You’ve got that same ‘I’m going to steal something I don’t really want or need’ face you always get when you’re about to land us in hot water.”

“Oh, my god! It’s them! It’s really Dan and Phil!”

Dan flicked his eyes up just in time to see two pubescent girls nervously walk up to them. Beside him, Philip grinned in what was probably supposed to be a warm, welcoming way, but just looked pained to Daniel. It apparently worked for the girls, however, seeing as they practically melted when Philip said, “Hi, how are you two?”

“We’re great!” the slightly taller one said. “We’re actually meeting for the first time in person here today! We met on Tumblr because of your videos!”

“That’s… great,” Daniel said lamely. He wracked his brain for some mention of it in their earlier search. He thought it might be that dark blue one Dan had open, but if what he saw was any indication of the rest of the site, no child that age should be on it. He decided to ask. “Tumblr is the one with all the porn. Right?”

The girl flushed slightly and her friend looked absolutely scandalized, and they both had a confused look in their eye. Daniel thought it was a reasonable query, but apparently Phil didn’t as he swooped in all smooth and charismatic as usual. “Ignore him; he’s had a bit of a rough morning. Is there anything we can help you with?”

“Well, we were hoping to get a selfie?” the shorter girl said, speaking for the first time. “Also, I have something I made for you. This will probably be my one chance to go to London or to meet you at all, so I figured I’d bring it in case we ran into you two.”

“Well, it’s your lucky day then, isn’t it?” Philip said slyly. He was starting to sound like he did right before he ate someone, so Daniel subtly nudged him to get him to knock it off while the girl dug in her bag.

“I, uh, here they are!” the shorter girl squeaked, handing over her gifts. Daniel took it in hand and appraised it. It was a hand-stitched, stuffed doll of what he assumed was supposed to be Dan. It wouldn’t be worth that much monetarily, but the stitches were even and the handywork nice and there was a remarkable attention to detail.

“How long did you spend on this?” Philip demanded, looking over his doll with an even keener eye.

The girl turned bright red. “Well, it takes about forty working hours each, but I’m really new at sewing so I had to start over a lot. I spent about a month working on each of them.”

“This is wonderful,” Philip grinned, and if he’d been a dragon all his pointy teeth would be on display and the girls would be running for the hills. As it was they just giggled behind their hands and looked adoringly at them. “You said something about a “selfie?’”

“Oh, right! The taller girl said, digging around in her bag. She emerged with a small, thin, pink brick with the same type of light up picture that the laptop had had; and a collapsable metal pole. “Don’t worry about having to do your noodle arms, Dan. I’ve got a selfie stick.” She quickly organized everyone so that she and her friend were in the middle with Daniel and Philip flanking her. Daniel was stood next to the girl taking the photo and glanced down at her still-open bag. “Okay, everyone, say ‘Phan!’” Daniel inwardly cringed, but did as he was told with a smile.

“It was wonderful meeting you both,” Daniel lied grudgingly, “but it looks like Philip and I have to go.”

They looked disappointed, but nodded understandingly and waved goodbye as they went on their way. When they were out of earshot, Philip turned to Daniel with a positively giddy expression. “Did you hear? She spent a _month_ on these. I have a token in my likeness that a follower spent a month hand-crafting. Daniel, we’re practically gods here.”

“Yeah, I really enjoyed our chat with them, too,” Daniel grinned wolfishly, tossing a wallet up and catching it with one over and over.

“I told you not to,” Philip growled. “We have to lay low while we’re here.”

“Cool it,” Daniel dismissed, rummaging through the wallet. “I wasn’t going to keep it or anything. Besides, it doesn’t have anything worth keeping. An ID and whatever loyalty cards are and a-” He snapped his head up and stared at Phil wide-eyed. “There are factories where you can _build bears_ in this world.”

Philip looked downright horrified at the very thought. “Yes, well, just leave the wallet somewhere. Someone else can deal with it.”

Daniel shrugged and carelessly dropped it where he stood before walking towards where their train was boarding. With any luck the girls would notice the wallet was missing and come back looking for it, and just assume she dropped it. No one ever needed to know what actually happened. “Come on, I think we’re boarding.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil had to admit that there were some pretty great parts about being a dragon, and if he’d gotten to become a dragon under different circumstances, he’d probably have enjoyed it. For one, he was finally taller than Dan again, even in his oddly reptilian human form, and that was always something to be celebrated. Plus, he knew instinctively that he was inhumanly strong, and fire breathing was cool under pretty much any circumstances.

And there was also the flying. That was cool.

It had taken Phil several tries to get to the point where he was comfortable flying with Dan on his back. He’d been very shaky at first making slow circles over the sea while Dan watched from the cave, perfectly fine to be outside now that the sun was down. Phil was rather slow and knew that he wouldn’t have nearly enough stamina to get to where they were headed in one night, but he was steady and he _probably_ wasn’t going to accidentally pop back into human form again.

Fortunately, Daniel and Philip kept several maps in their cave, and Phil was currently flying through the night sky with Dan on his back trying to navigate without Siri’s help for the first time in years. Phil thanked the British school system for forcing secondary students to take geography A-levels and hoped that stuck and translated well enough for Dan to read the map well enough for them to not get horrifically lost. They had been flying for several hours now, the sky was lightening with just the barest hint of dawn on the horizon, and Phil was hoping they’d manage to make it to the halfway point Daniel and Philip had recommended for them to stay the night at. Phil wasn’t exactly looking forward to the miniature camping trip, but maybe it would finally get Dan off his back about taking him.

**Hey, so we just passed that gorge and the river, so we should be coming up on the forest soon. Philip says there’s a really big clearing there where you can land easily.**

Phil nodded, which was a bad idea when you’re flying as it can and will knock you off course for a few seconds. A few minutes later he started as gentle a decent as possible towards a meadow surrounded by tall trees. He hadn’t ever really gotten the hang of landing, but they made it to the ground with no injuries, so he counted it as a win.

“No offense, Phil, but if it turns out we’re stuck here forever, I’m going to need you to work on your flying,” Dan said, stretching every muscle in his body and arching his back luxuriously. He was sure there was some specific posture that was better for dragon riding, otherwise Daniel had a very rough life, but he didn’t know what it was and sitting in a near split on a wide, hard, spiky surface was a lot more strenuous on his lower back and thighs than he was used to.

Dan watched as Phil transformed back to two legs shook out his own probably aching muscles and joints. “Yeah, well next time you can fly and I’ll ride, how does that sound?”

“You know what? I think I’ll just keep riding.”

“Yeah, you really prefer riding me, don’t you?” Phil said with a mischievous grin.

Dan rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “You know what they say about low-hanging fruit. Right?”

“That it tastes best. Hey, what do you think the other us-es are doing tonight? Like, we obviously won’t be getting there at the same time if they left earlier in the day. Where do you think they’re sleeping?”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno, they’ll probably camp out somewhere or maybe they were smart enough to wait a day before leaving. I doubt they managed to figure out how to rent a room anywhere, so they won’t be staying in a five star hotel for sure.”  
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“So, what, we can just use this weird voice thing and someone will bring us these pancake things?”

“Yeah, that’s what I read. We can just order them to bring us anything on this list while we lounge about on this bed. Isn’t that amazing?”

“I love this world.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“Yeah, I mean, if anyone needs someone to be concerned about them, it’s us, I guess,” Phil joked. “I mean, I haven’t been camping outside The Sims since I was a teenager.”

“I’ve never been camping at all because my boyfriend hates me and doesn’t let me do anything fun,” Dan countered.

“That’s because I hate it and I know you’re going to hate it,” Phil said, raising a brow. “But now you’re finally getting your chance. Isn’t that great?”

“You’re the worst person in the world.”

“This one or ours?”

“Both.”

Phil laughed and started rolling out what little bedding they had available to them. Apparently, Daniel and Philip had lost their good bedrolls on their last trip, leaving Dan and Phil with a few blankets and some thin mats. This wasn’t going to be fun. “Come on, help me set up camp.”

“Do we even have any food?” Dan wondered idly, arranging some stones in a circle and piling in some sticks and logs. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but this was probably helpful.

“Yeah, I, uh, I packed some dried meat I found while I was looking for supplies. You hungry?”

Dan assessed himself quickly before nodding. “Yeah, I think so. You want to start a fire?”

Phil beamed, took a deep breath a unleashed a column of flame at the pile of sticks. Unfortunately, he was a little overzealous and Dan just so happened to be on the wrong side of the fire pit.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh _fuck_!” Dan swore, furiously patting himself down to extinguish the little flames licking at his clothes. Phil yelped and leapt to action, and with his big, flameproof hands they put Dan out before any damage could occur.

Out of danger, Dan narrowed his eyes at Phil who had the decency to at least look sheepish. “Uh, sorry?”

Dan scoffed, but now that he wasn’t at risk of becoming a crisp, the whole thing was kind of funny. “Let’s… let’s just eat.”

Phil handed over the satchel of dried meat and Dan took a whiff of it before tossing it right back in his face and doubled over with his hands on his stomach. Phil quickly leapt to action and started running a soothing hand up and down Dan’s back while he tried not to retch. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Dan groaned. “It just smelled like death except a million times worse and the thought of eating it makes my stomach churn. D’you think it’s gone off or something?”

Phil frowned and thought. It hadn’t smelled odd to him, especially not in the capacity Dan was describing, and with his newly enhanced senses he could still smell it and it smelled great. “I don’t think it’s the meat, so it must be you.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “If I got stuck in some vegetarian’s body, I’m going to die.”

“You won’t die,” Phil said fondly, standing up. “Come on, let’s go try to scrounge up some berries or something for you to eat.”

Fortunately, there just so happened to be a blueberry patch, just past the tree line, and they both stuffed their pockets and bags. Dan wasn’t a particular fan of blueberries, by any stretch of the imagination, but the prospects of starving and hunting for different foods were even more unattractive, so he ate his berries. There just so happened to be enough for Dan to eat his fill and still have a meal left, so he packed away the leftovers to eat the next day. With that he flopped down on their bedding nest, curled up, slid his eyes closed, and waited for sleep.

It didn’t come.

Dan groaned and shoved the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. He glanced over at Phil to see if maybe he had any advice, but he was already snoring away. Besides, he was going through enough that he probably didn’t want to deal with what was probably just Dan’s insomnia acting up. Then again, this wasn’t like Dan’s normal restless sleepless nights, so maybe it was something unique to Daniel.

He was just about to give up when an absolutely amazing thought occurred to him. _Philip would know._ He closed his eyes and struggled to find the link the connected him to Philip, but after stumbling into Phil’s head a couple times he managed to find it. **Philip? Can you hear me?**

**Yes, Dan. What is it?**

Dan winced at the clear impatience in Philip’s voice? thoughts? but carried on. **Do you know why I can’t sleep?**

 **Well, I’d imagine it’s because Daniel is an elf and elves don’t sleep** Philip thought dryly. **But then again, you never know. You’d better just keep at it and not talk to me.**

 **Ha ha, very funny** Dan snapped. **Well, if he doesn’t sleep, what does he do?**

**He meditates.**

Dan deflated. He and Phil had both been pretty crap at meditation earlier. **Oh. Is there a reason I can’t eat meat?**

**Mother of the mountains, you dullards didn’t feed Daniel’s body meat, did you?**

**No, I got sick from the smell and didn’t eat any** Dan said defensively. **We’re not idiots, you know.**

There was no answer from Philip and Dan felt the link grow cold. Well, he’d gotten what he needed, so he supposed it didn’t matter. He pulled himself out of the link and opened his eyes. If he was going to meditate for hours he would have to get ready.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

**Okay, so the two of you need to be extremely careful in here. When Philip and I were here the place was crawling with all sorts of things that want to kill you. You brought the chime like I told you to, right?**

Phil stared up at the castle looming before him as Daniel prattled away in his head. Apparently, Daniel and Philip had already made it to their side of the mirror and waiting for them - Phil didn’t even want to think about how they managed to do it when he knew for a fact that the exhibit halls would be closed at that time of night. All that was left was for Dan and Phil to get on their side.

Phil looked over at Dan whose ears were folded back to his head and twitching gently as he warily looked up at the castle before them. Phil would readily admit that it was odd seeing his boyfriend a strange purple grey with silver hair, but it was rather adorable watching his new bunny-like ears flick around with every slight emotion. “Daniel, what do your elf ears hear?” he said jokingly to lighten the mood.

Dan playfully narrowed his eyes, but his ears shot straight up and started swiveling back and forth like they were trying to find something. “Nothing,” he frowned. “I hear literally nothing in there. I can hear like some tiny animal running around, but nothing big what so ever.”

**That- That can’t be. Why would everything have just suddenly left? There were so many monsters in there I almost _died_ last time.**

Maybe they found somewhere new to live? Phil suggested weakly. He could practically feel Daniel roll his eyes through the link. Phil just shook his head and ignored him. “Come on, Dan. Let’s get out of here, I want to go home,” he said, starting the hike up the stairs. He pushed open the big, heavy doors with a loud creak, and peered into the gloom. He was once again surprised that he could see perfectly well without light. Being a dragon had its perks. “So, where is this thing?”

“Hidden away in a closet in the room on the second floor,” Dan answered. He still had his ears up swiveling and twitching in every direction, on the lookout for anything that might try to sneak up on them. But there was nothing. Even Phil had begun to notice the tense silence that blanketed the castle. It felt like the world was holding its breath, and Phil wasn’t sure he wanted to know why.

With no effort, they found themselves standing before the very same ornate mirror that got them into this mess. It was just as big and tacky on this side as it had been in Heaver, and looked like it had taken some hard core wear and tear from being abandoned.

 **So, do we need to do anything?** Phil thought, looking it over with a critical eye.

 **Well, what did you two do on your side?** Daniel thought.

**Nothing, really. We just looked at it and then Phil felt queasy so we left.**

**Well, on our side, I accidentally bumped into it, so maybe give that a shot.**

Dan and Phil immediately set to investigating the mirror thoroughly. However, no matter how much they tapped on it and prodded it - Dan even whipped out a wand he had snagged from Daniel and Philip’s stash - nothing happened. Eventually, Dan let out a groan of defeat and stepped back so he could fall into a seated position with his face in his hands. “Give it up,” he said to Phil, who was still poking the mirror. “That thing isn’t even magical. It’s just an ugly mirror.”

Phil turned and looked at him, surprise clear on his face. “How do you know that?”

Dan shrugged. “Since we’ve been here, we’ve been around a lot of magical things, and I noticed they give off a weird magic feeling. This mirror doesn’t have a hint of that.”

 **I’m afraid that’s true over here as well** Philip said. **As far as Daniel and I can tell, it’s just a normal mirror.**

 _Fuck_ , Dan thought to himself, and without wasting a second, he slammed the connection he had with Philip closed and curled up in a ball, sniffling softly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said on a shuddery breath.

In an instant, Phil was on his knees at his side, and Dan felt awful that the big, scaly, clawed hands of his boyfriend were doing nothing but unnerving him. “It’s going to be alright,” Phil soothed, but his voice was _wrong_ and Dan hated it.

“It’s not alright,” Dan snapped, curling in on himself further. “In case it somehow slipped your notice, you’re now a fucking dragon. Even when you’re close to my size you’re still so spiky the back half of my brain is worried I’m going to be impaled when I give you a hug. Plus, I’m grey, my eyes look like something out of a Stephen King novel, my ears are a foot long, and I can hear and see everything so well I’m constantly overwhelmed. And to top it off, I feel shitty about being upset, because I may be a weird color swapped human, but my boyfriend is a reptile and he seems to be taking everything in stride. So, tell me, Phil, what exactly is okay about this?”

“Not much,” Phil shrugged, and Dan was so startled at his answer that he looked up from his knees. Phil was still knelt right next to him and his eyes may have been weird, reptilian, and slitted but they were the exact same shade of blue Dan had fallen in love with years ago. When he noticed he had Dan’s full attention, he gave him the softest smile he could. “Right now, nothing is alright. Like you said, we’re scared and confused and overwhelmed, but it’s _going_ to be okay. We’re either going to fix this and get home, or we’re going to figure out how to live here, and we’re going to do it the same way we solve every problem: together. I mean, we made a book and a world-wide tour; we moved to London with nothing more than our first month’s rent and an idea; we make a living making videos for literally millions of strangers every day. This world can’t be any harder, right?”

Dan let out a watery chuckle. “I suppose you’re right about that.”

Phil grinned, and it was sharper and more toothy than it should be, but maybe that was okay. He gently pulled Dan into a hug, and it may have been his imagination, but, to Dan, it felt a little less pointy than before. “You’ve got to promise me one thing, though, or this will never work,” Phil rumbed. “No more keeping secrets any more, okay? If something’s bothering you, I want to help, okay?”

Dan nodded. “You, too, then. I’ve said it probably a dozen times, but you’re a lizard, and that’s probably not good for your mental health.”

Phil chuckled. “You have a deal.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Back on their side of the mirror, Daniel and Philip were having a rather frustrating time themselves. Daniel was pacing back and forth across the rather small bedroom while Philip was peering down the hall, squinting behind his new glasses. When Dan had ended the connection Phil had, too, so they were on their own in this strange world with a useless, non-magical mirror. “Well, we can’t just stay here and wait for those two to get their shit together,” Daniel hissed. “We’re going to get caught if we wait around much longer. There should be a guard coming in the next,” he glanced down at the watch on his wrist, “ten minutes, and I doubt she’ll be too pleased to find us in here.”

Philip hissed in frustration, and Daniel had to admit that it wasn’t as intimidating coming from a pale, lanky human rather than a dragon. In fact, it looked downright ridiculous. “Then let’s get out of here. Once we’re out we’ll try to get back in contact, and if we need to get back in here, we know we obviously can.”

Daniel nodded and carefully crept out of the room first, keeping to the shadows and looking for the guard. He found her a few rooms over looking at some wax sculpture with an odd smile. Holding his breath, Daniel pulled out the slingshot he had fashioned from a few things sitting around Dan and Phil’s lair, loaded it with a small marble and aimed it at the stone wall at the other end of the hall away from where Philip was lying in wait. It bounced off with a bright _PING_! and Daniel held his breath as he watched the guard furrow her brow and wander away to go investigate. Daniel grinned, and darted back to Philip and silently motioned for him to follow behind.

Unfortunately, Philip’s new form had many disadvantages he wasn’t used to, including a rather awful center of gravity. Daniel watched in abject horror as Philip tripped over his own feet and crashed right into a suit of armor on display.

“Who’s there?!” Daniel gritted his teeth when he heard the guard shout and saw her light flash at the end of the hall.

“Come on!” he hissed, yanking Philip to his feet and booking it down the hall. However, Dan didn’t take very good care of himself, apparently, because he was panting and out of breath by the end of the hall. Fortunately, Philip, who appeared to be hyped up on so much adrenalin that he was fine, bodily lifted him onto his shoulder and carried him out. While being bounced around, he dug into his bag as best he could and pulled out the bag of marbles he’d bought before coming in. They weren’t ball bearings, but they could slow someone down if he dumped them on the floor, and that’s exactly what he did.

There was a shout of surprise and a loud thump of someone hitting the floor just as Philip rounded the corner where the window they had jimmied open was. He quickly climbed through, leaving Daniel to follow after and replace the window to make it look like they’d never been there. Then they ran as fast as they could into the forest until they were a fairly safe distance away and they collapsed against a tree.

“We’ve got to get back to our world,” Philip gasped around the stitch in his chest. “I can’t see a goddamn thing outside of these weird spectacles and this body is clearly defective considering it can’t even stand up straight on its own volition half the time.”

“At least you seem to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without finding yourself at Death’s door,” Daniel wheezed. “Has this man never done anything with his body at all? I get winded when I go above a medium tempo stroll.”

Philip laughed, which then turned into a rough cough. “Don’t make me laugh,” he warned. “I promise this body isn’t much better off.”

Daniel shot him a wry grin, and they fell into mostly silence as they both focused on leveling their breathing. When they felt like their lungs would stay in place in their chests, they set off for the station. Luckily, it was only about a mile and a half or so - Philip wasn’t sure if they’d be able to make it much farther than that - and they found a nice secluded clearing in the woods to sleep until they needed to catch their train. About five hours later, they were awoken by the sun beaming at them through the trees and they snuck into the station bathroom to make it look a little less like they had spent the night breaking into a castle and sleeping in the woods.

Fortunately, things were just as quiet as usual that early morning as they usually were in the sleepy town of Hever. Before long, Daniel and Philip were on the train to London with a couple of professional-looking men in suits chatting with one another. “Yeah, did you hear that Hever got broken into last night?” one of them said.

The other rolled his eyes and took a long sip from whatever was in the mug he was holding. “Kids these days are getting out of hand,” he grouched. “This is the third break in of the month. They didn’t steal or ruin anything did they?”

“Not according to the news this morning,” the first one shrugged. “Worst thing they did was trip up the guard with some marbles. Apparently the police can’t even find a point of entry.”

“Marbles? Really? You don’t think it could be actual thieves, do you?”

The first man scoffed. “They didn’t steal anything; what use would actual crooks break in for if not to steal?”

“They could have been casing the joint.”

“They apparently already cased it pretty well, considering whoever it was didn’t get caught.” 

The second man shrugged and took another long sip. “You’re right. Probably just some kids.”

Philip glanced at Daniel who looked so genuinely proud of himself, that Philip felt the need to lay a hand on his knee so he wouldn’t go bragging. Their conversation soon shifted and Daniel and Philip settled down for the hour long ride to London.

“So, do you want to try using the Google machine when we get back?” Daniel asked, chewing on the side of his nail - a habit he picked up since crossing over.

“Yes, I suppose that makes the most sense.”

Daniel hummed and leaned back, letting his eyes slip closed. Philip narrowed his eyes. He had told him to sleep this morning and the night before, but he had a feeling Daniel hadn’t taken his advice. As he watched, the former elf’s breathing evened and deepened until he was very clearly sound asleep. Philip settled himself in for the short ride, left blissfully alone.

**Philip! Can you hear me?**

Or so he had hoped. With an unimpressed glare at someone who wasn’t there, Philip coolly snapped back I **hope for Daniel’s sake that’s not how you get your Phil’s attention. If you keep shouting, he’ll eat you and Daniel will be stuck in this body forever.** A smirk curled at his mouth when he almost physically felt Dan wither in on himself at the rebuke.

**Sorry, the whole telepathy thing is still new to us. Anyway, Phil and I left the castle; we’re heading to Lundy whenever the sun goes back down.**

Philip frowned. **Lundy? Why there?**

**Well, it’s the capitol, isn’t it? If not the capitol, a busy city, yeah?**

**Well, yes.**

**Then that’s our best bet to find information. No offense, but neither of you seemed to be very prolific book collectors, and I doubt sitting around and staring at your gold will get us anywhere.**

**You can’t just wander around Lundy. Daniel and I are wanted criminals, and you’ll be arrested by nightfall.**

Philip could practically see Dan roll his eyes. **Well, first off, you’re a fucking dragon. No one should be able to arrest you. Second, if it’s as busy as you say then it will be easy for us to blend in, and apparently Phil looks more like a dragonborn than an actual morphed dragon, so that will make things even easier.**

**How do you know that?**

**Well, I had to sit around in a cave all day while Phil was out pulling aerial stunts and while you don’t have a lot of books, you have one on dragons. Why is that, anyway? Are you worried you’re going to forget what a dragon is?**

Philip narrowed his eyes and tried to ignore both the heat rising in his cheeks and the men who were now looking at him oddly out of the corner of their eyes. **Daniel got that when we first teamed up because he felt foolish asking questions** he lied. He had honestly just really liked the illustrations and anything that talked about how great he - and his entire species - was.

**You know I’m literally reading your mind, right?**

This time Philip couldn’t deny his blush and he quickly cut off communication. He was just glad that Daniel was still asleep, otherwise he’d never live this down. The trip back to London was short and uneventful, and before long he was roughly shaking Daniel awake so they could leave.

However, London was bigger and _much_ more confusing than either of them remembered Lundy being.

“Do you, er, do you remember the way back?” Daniel asked nervously, glancing around the crowded street they had found themselves on.

Philip was about to scoff and say of _course_ he knew how to get back, he was a _dragon_ for Tiamat’s sake, but a car drove by and he remembered that he was not, in fact, a dragon. Back home he had preternaturally good recall, particularly with directions, but here he was just as lost as the next person. “Er, well, no, actually.”

Daniel chewed his bottom lip for a second before he snapped his fingers. “Okay, well, I remember the name of the street and it can’t be too far from here. Let’s see if we can find a map.”

Philip grinned and followed Daniel to a public map on display back inside the station. There was a rather large crowd of rather dumb-looking tourists gathered around it and Philip saw Daniel’s eyes sparkle. He thought to tell Daniel to keep his hands to himself, but decided, instead, to save his breath.

Daniel squeezed past until he was close enough to make out words on the map. He scanned it quickly but carefully until he saw the street they were after. Heygate. Easy enough to remember. He squirmed his way back to Philip, making sure to press against as many people as possible. When they were a safe distance away, he grinned at Philip and showed off the four wallets he managed to snatch. Philip rolled his eyes, but Daniel knew he was at least mildly impressed.

“Come on, lead the way back,” Philip said, gesturing to the busy London street outside.

Daniel took the challenge with a grin, stuffed the wallets in his bag, and stepped outside. It was louder and more crowded than anywhere Daniel had been before, but he kept chanting the directions in his head until they stepped onto a rather familiar looking street. “Ta-da!” he said with a grand wave of his hand. “Heygate Street. Now, all we have to do is walk down it until we find where we need to be.”

The corner of Philip’s mouth curled up, and Daniel felt a rather nice warm bloom of pride in his chest. It wasn’t everyone who managed to impress a centuries old dragon, so when Daniel got that particular look, he couldn’t quite quash down all his feelings. “Well, what are we waiting for, then?” Philip grinned. “We’ve got the whole of Google to explore.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“Okay, so we just have to be quiet,” Dan whispered. The air was cool on his skin and his heart thrummed somewhere around in his gut (thanks, elf physiology) and his breath was tight in his chest. He had never broken in anywhere before, but they needed to get into the library and after seeing multiple walls plastered with their faces, Dan had to admit that walking in the front door wouldn’t exactly be easy. So, they had waited until night had fallen and found a loose window.

“I think there’s a little more to it than just volume control,” Phil grunted, hoisting Dan up so he could get through.

Once he had squirmed his waist through the narrow window, Dan tumbled headfirst towards the floor. He winced to brace for impact, but instead of crashing, he pulled into a tight, silent roll. He blinked in shock for a second and grinned. Muscle memory was so cool. He glanced around quickly, and when he noticed the coast was clear he gave a silent signal to Phil who followed him is with more grace than he’d done anything ever.

Dan blinked a few times to get used to the lack of light before slinking towards the bookshelves. He was about to step out into an open area when Phil put a clawed hand on his chest. Dan looked up at him to see him standing perfectly still with his nose in the air, taking deep, even breaths. He locked eyes with Dan for a half second and tackled him to the ground and curled up around him under a dark table.

Dan didn’t dare to breathe a pair of thick, heavy boots stepped right in front of them. “Jaime, we’re never going to catch them if you keep stomping around like that,” a sharp voice said as another lighter pair of boots appeared.

“Viv, don’t worry about it,” another woman, probably Jaime, scoffed. “That librarian was just nervous because a drow and a dragonborn were skulking around earlier. Even she admits that he doesn’t know if it was actually Daniel and Philip. Besides, why would the two most wanted thieves in Umbria waste their time breaking into a library?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know, do I?” Viv hissed. “Just try to be a little quieter, okay?”

Dan couldn’t see her, but he was sure Jaime rolled her eyes before saying, “Sure, babe. I’ll try to keep it down.” They walked away, this time distinctly more careful and quiet.

**Dan, do you think we can talk like this even when I’m not actually a dragon?**

**Hell yeah, we can** Dan thought, grinning at him. **Phil Lester, have I ever told you you’re a genius?**

**Once or twice.**

**Come on, follow me.**

Phil followed along behind Dan as they climbed up on top of the bookshelves. He gestured to Phil to wait, and crept along the shelves until he saw the two women on the hunt for them. One was a blonde woman with a sturdy build and some heavy armor that clinked every time she moved and the other was a thin lady with dark skin wearing just a set of wizard’s robes that shimmered in the low light. Upon second glance, Dan noticed that there was a young boy strapped to the blonde woman’s back, sound asleep, and that’s what gave Dan pause. **Hey, do you think we can send pictures across this thing?**

**I mean, that would make sense. Try it.**

Dan closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of the two women and the young boy. **Do they look familiar to you?**

**You don’t think they’re the-**

**Lady and her son from the train station? Yeah, I do.**

There was radio silence for a moment then a picture formed in Dan’s mind of the lady from the station wearing a set of robes. Y **eah, that was her. What was her name? Victoria? Verona? Valerie?**

**Viviana?**

**Yes! That’s it. That makes sense to shorten to Viv, right?**

**Definitely. And didn’t she have a wife who looked like the blonde?**

**I don’t know, I didn’t really get a good look at her. But, that is definitely Todd.**

**Dan, this is going to sound odd, but I think we’re going to need to look for books on a multiverse theory.**

Dan’s eyes widened in realization. **You think there’s a version of everyone here?**

**Yeah, I do. I mean, obviously there’s me and you and the mirror, and even London as a whole. Now, we know that Viviana and her family are here. I mean, it could be a coincidence, but at this point I’m desperate for any kind of explanation.**

Dan nodded. He knew Phil couldn’t see him, but he was confident the other understood the feeling. **You look around over there to see if you can find anything. Keep your nose peeled to see if they come by again. In our world they may like us fine, but the blonde has a really big axe, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.**

**What are you going to do?**

**I’m going to look around over here where they are and keep a tail on them. I don’t have giant wings to keep track of, so I think I can stay hidden a bit better than you.**

**Fair. Okay, if I find anything, I’ll give you a buzz.**

**Got it.**

When the two women were just out of eyesight, but not out of hearing, Dan crept down from the top of the shelves and followed along behind them. As he did, he scanned the books he passed, looking for something that would give even the slightest hint of an answer. It wasn’t long before a thick, purple book with gold script caught his eye. _The Planar System and You: A Beginner’s Guide to the Planes of Existence and Travel Between Them_. Without a second thought, Dan shoved the book into his bag. Then, as if realizing what he had just done, he guiltily looked around and placed a few handfuls of gold coins on the shelf where the book was. He was probably leaving more than the book was worth, but Daniel and Philip were swimming in gold, and probably wouldn’t miss it. **Phil, I think I’ve got what we’re looking for. Meet me back outside.**

**Gladly. I have a couple books that may be helpful, too.**

Without a sound, Dan and Phil met outside the window on the empty side street. “Let’s get out of here,” Dan hissed, pulling Phil along.

“So, the librarian didn’t recognize us,” Phil pointed out as they took another turn.

“Yeah. So?”

“So, I bet an innkeeper wouldn’t actually recognize us. At least for a night.”

Dan narrowed his eyes. “You just don’t want to go camping again.”

“I really don’t.”

Dan chuckled and stuffed his hand in their money pouch. They definitely had enough not only for a room, but also buy the confidence of anyone who doubted them. “Alright then.” He glanced around and saw a lit up dining hall down the street. “Come on, if that isn’t an inn, they probably know where one is.”

Inside the tavern was warm and sticky and crowded and noisy. Or, it was noisy before Dan and Phil stepped through the door. A tense hush fell over the room as they made their way to the counter where a lizard man was keeping them under suspicious watch. “What do you want?” he snapped, his voice high and raspy like Phil’s. “I don’t want your kind in here. You just turn back and I won’t call the night guard.”

“What do you mean by ‘your kind?’” Dan said, laying on every ounce of charm he had. He could feel his ears start to twitch to betray his nerves, but he stilled them with a firm thought. “We’re just looking for a place to stay.”

The innkeeper looked confused for a moment like he was doubting if he knew who they were. However, he held firm in his decision and said, “I don’t have any double rooms left. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Dan said easily. “I don’t sleep, so the one bed is fine.”

“Well, I don’t normally accept such late tenants.”

Dan’s smile began to wane. “Well, it’s just for the night, and we can pay double, if you like.”

The lizard man looked even more uncomfortable for a moment before finally snapping, “Look, you two may not be those thieves everyone is looking for, but you look an awful lot like them, so how do I know it’s not you?”

“Okay, Dadellus, that’s more than enough.” Dan and Phil turned at the smooth voice that cut in on their conversation. They were both surprised to see another dark elf like Dan making their way towards them. They were incredibly tall and lankier than should be physically possible; their long, soft, silver hair was pulled up into an intricate braid; and their skin was dark, almost approaching obsidian instead of the purplish hue that Dan was. They turned to Dan and Phil and smiled. “Hi there, my name is Twill,” they said, and Dan felt like a schoolboy with a crush. He cast a quick glance at Phil, and all of his guilt was absolved when he saw the other man looked like he would be scarlet if not for the black scales on his face.

Dan stammered, trying to gain control of his tongue. “I, uh, I’m-”

**Fake names!**

“James! My name is James.”

“Yeah, and, uh, I’m Michael.”

Twill raised an eyebrow, but they were apparently used to people tripping all over themselves in their presence. “Pleasure to meet you both. If you’d like, there’s a room available at the inn I work at that I know would be available to you.”

“That would be great,” Phil gushed. “Thanks so much, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Come on, you two.” They obediently fell into line and let them lead the way out. They walked in silence for a moment before Twill looked back at them with a sly smirk. “So, I’m right when I say you two are actually the Daniel and Philip. Right?” They tossed their head back and laughed at Dan and Phil’s shocked faces. “Oh, please. That racist lizard may think all drow look alike, but I’d know that face anywhere. It’s like you didn’t even try. Philip, you’ve actually disguised yourself pretty well as a dragonborn, though. Keep up the good work.”

Dan choked on his own spit, and it sounded like Phil wasn’t much better off. “You- You’re not taking us to the police, are you?” Dan asked, looking around nervously.

Twill rolled their eyes. “Oh, please. Calm down, you two. If I wanted you turned in, I would have let Dadellus keep you. I just think there’s something going on, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes.”

Dan and Phil traded glances and Dan said, “How do we know we can trust you?”

Twill froze and looked at Dan in delight. “You’re not actually Daniel, are you?”

“What makes you say that?”

Twill grinned and it looked a lot less warm than it did before, and Dan suddenly noticed the ornately curved dagger on their hip. “Because Daniel would know that you can’t trust anyone in this town.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil sighed in frustration and rubbed his eyes while Dan read the chapter on the Plane of Thought for about the fourth time. They had taken a quick nap when Twill had to their room, and spent the rest of the day researching. The books Phil had managed to find that night had been absolutely rubbish - one was even a work of fiction- but Dan’s had been incredibly informative.

So far, they had learned that there were apparently a total of 25 planes of existence, and that they were on what was called the Prime Material Plane. Their home was the Plane of thought that was basically right on top of the Prime Material Plane, but for whatever reason didn’t have magic. They were sandwiched between the Feywilds and Shadowfell where unfettered good and evil magic ran rampant. There were also the Ethereal plane four other planes based on the elements surrounding those where different creatures and monsters resided. Then there were 16 other planes housing spirits and gods and Phil honestly couldn’t wrap his head around it all. There were spells and portals that allowed people to travel between most planes, but because there was no magic in the Plane of Thought, there had never been a way to get there or back. There also weren’t any mentions of spells that allowed you to swap minds with your alternate self, and, in fact, no mentions what so ever about alternate selves at all.

Phil was brought out of his musings by Dan growling and throwing the book against the wall of their room. “This is pointless,” he snapped, crossing his arms in a huff. Phil sighed and stood to retrieve the book. Maybe, if he looked one more time, he’d find the answers they were looking for.

That’s when he saw it. Right there at the bottom center of the front cover in delicate gold script was an almost familiar name. “Estellaria Butterfly,” he read, the sounds heavy on his tongue.

Dan sat straight up on the bed and looked at Phil with wide eyes. “What did you just say?”

“Estellaria Butterfly? She’s the author of this book. Why do you-”

Dan lept from the bed and grabbed Phil’s biceps in a tight grip. “Phil! This may be our answer! This is another double! This is that same lady we met at Heaver!”

Phil furrowed his brow. “I thought her name was Stella F-something.”

Dan waved him off. “I think names may not translate well. I mean, we go by Daniel and Philip here, and we don’t have last names.”

“To be fair, you go by Daniel all the time, and I’m a dragon here, and I don’t think dragons have last names like Lester.”

“Semantics. I’m telling you, it’s her. I mean, what’s the likelihood that this same lady is associated with both planar research _and_ some previously unknown inter-planar swapping magic mirror on both sides? If anyone knows what’s going on, it’s her. Come on, this is the closest we’ve been, and I doubt Daniel and Philip managed to get anything.”

“Well, is there an ‘About the Author’ section?” Phil asked, sitting on the bed and flipping to the back.

Dan shook his head. “I don’t think so, but maybe Twill knows where we can find her. They seem to know everything about this town. Even if they don’t know exactly where she is maybe they’ll know someone who does.”

“Should we send Daniel and Philip to talk to Stella on our side?” Phil asked. “I mean, they don’t have to go back to Hever, they could just Skype her or something. She really liked that room, so maybe she knows some stories or something about the mirror.”

Dan nodded and they both closed their eyes in meditation so they could contact their doubles. Phil managed to tap through, and before long he heard Daniel snap **Yes? What is it? We’re busy.**

 **We’ve been busy, too** Phil assured him. **We think we may have a lead on how to get everyone back home.**

**Great, because this hellscape has every bit of information we could possibly want save for literally anything that would be remotely helpful.**

**I did find out about an online community that believe themselves to be dragons** Philip piped in. **I’ve been talking to them, and they don’t know exactly what’s going on in our situation, but most of them seem have the spirits of metallic dragons. Not bloodthirsty enough for my taste, but dragons, still.**

 **Holy shit, are you telling me you’re talking to dragonkin?** Dan demanded, and Phil didn’t even need to open his eyes to know he had a shit-eating grin on his face.

**You knew about them? Why didn’t you say anything?**

**Honestly? Because I didn’t think you’d find them.**

**Please just tell me you weren’t using my AmazingPhil Tumblr Phil begged.**

**Of course I was** Philip responded, sounding insulted.

Dan was cackling out loud, which Phil graciously ignored in favor of telling Daniel and Philip of what they had discovered. **Okay, so on your side you’re looking for a lady named Estella Far-**

 **Ugh, you’re not telling me you two went to that phoney psychic, too, are you?** Daniel groaned.

**Psychic? What are you talking about?**

**Right before Philip and I went on our mission, we met with this lady named Estellaria who claimed to be a psychic.**

**She- She didn’t happen to use astrology to predict the future, did she?**

**Ugh. I knew it. It was probably your idea, wasn’t it?**

**No. We didn’t go visit her. We were visiting the castle and she works there. She said she was psychic and predicted the weather.**

**That settles it** Dan decided. **She’s definitely our best bet for finding out what’s going on. You two need to call up Hever and see if you can ask her some questions. If you have to, call Martyn**

Philip interrupted him with what could only be described as a very angry mental hiss. **I’ll not contact that worm for any reason. I’d rather die in this world than be at his mercy.**

**I’m guessing you know Martyn.**

**He’s my broodmate, and a blight on our entire clan. He is a weak, sniveling, cowardly traitor whom I would sooner devour than speak with.**

**Well, alright then. Uh, in our world, Phil and Martyn have a pretty good relationship, so maybe don’t say anything like that. Also, have the two of you been Tweeting at all?**

**Tweeting?**

**I’ll explain later. In the meantime, just find Estella.**

**We’re on it.**

Phil opened his eyes and grinned at Dan who looked like all of his prayers had been answered at once. “Phil, we might be getting home soon!”

“I know,” Phil beamed. “We just have to find this Estellaria lady. Hopefully, Twill can help us out.”  
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

“Of course I know who Estellaria Butterfly is,” Twill scoffed. “What, do I look like an idiot or something?”

Phil released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Do you think you could tell us where we could find her?”

Twill scratched their chin in thought, then went back to cleaning the glass they were holding. “Yeah. Uh, if I remember correctly, she’s got a research tower on the outskirts of town.”

“You’re amazing,” Dan gushed. “I don’t know how we can repay you.”

Twill raised a brow at them and smirked, “Well, generally, it’d be three gold pieces, but you two are cute, so I’ll make it two.”

Dan flushed darkly, and Phil secretly hoped his boyfriend never got any better at being on the receiving end of flirtation. This version of Dan was always adorable. “Thanks a lot, Twill,” Phil grinned, taking out three pieces of gold and leaving a couple extra as a tip. “Do you think you could give us directions?”

Twill nodded and said, “She’s on the east side of town, about a mile past the tree line. It should be no problem to find, since there’s a path. Make sure you go prepared, though, because there’s some pretty aggressive critters running around in there.”

They said their goodbyes, and went up to their room to gather their things. “Do you, uh, do you think we should buy some weapons?” Dan asked. “I mean, I know it’s not that far back to the cave, but I really don’t want to waste any time.”

Phil nodded. “Yeah, and I think I saw a stall selling some pretty basic-looking stuff outside. You know the ‘swing and hopefully hit’ kind and not the ‘I’ve been training for years to use this’ kind.”

“That sounds right up our alley.”

Soon their pockets were significantly lighter, but they were far more prepared for adventuring with Dan in a set of studded leather armor with a mace and crossbow, and Phil with a club that came up almost to his waist. “First adventure?” the shopkeeper asked disinterestedly, counting the gold Dan had handed over.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Phil smiled.

“Yes, well, good luck and all that. Come back in one piece and buy more of my stuff.”

Phil laughed, but the shopkeeper didn’t, so he coughed awkwardly and dragged Dan away towards the forest. Just as Twill had said, the path was marked and easily found, and they made their way down the path. Phil paused when he heard his foot make an odd squelching noise when he lifted it. He glanced down and saw that he was standing in a good inch worth of wet, sticky spider web. He went to point his revelation out to Dan, but Dan was busy noticing the webs covering the trees surrounding them. When a sharp clicking noise filled the air, Phil just closed his eyes and groaned at their luck.

With one swift movement, one of the spiders scurried right at Phil, and he winced to brace for the bite that never came. Apparently, the spider had gotten a bad angle on his scaly arm and it quickly backed away, clicking angrily as another replaced it. This one failed as well, and Phil was feeling near invincible. The third spider apparently learned from its companions and attacked the far squishier Dan, but he managed to dodge and bash it over the head with his mace. The final one shot a string of webbing at him, but it aimed wide and shot over his head.

Dan whirled on Phil and hissed, “Can you breathe fire or not?” while once again, hitting the spider closest to him over the head.

“What? Oh! Right!” He took in a deep breath and let out a blistering line of fire that engulfed the three spiders that weren’t right next to Dan, then swung his club down on the one closest to him. Said spider didn’t particularly appreciate this, and bit down, this time getting a good grip on him. He howled in pain as venom ran its short course through his veins, and while he blinked away his blurry vision another spider took its chance and bit him as well.

“Phil!” Dan cried, and he scrambled to help him, ducking under the bite the spider he had been engaged with aimed at him. He swung his mace wildly, managing to hit the first spider sprawling. Still alive, but looking much worse for wear. He managed to yank Phil down just in time to dodge another shot of web, and Phil straightened with a mighty roar, and Dan had never seen him so angry. He let off two fireballs that left two of the spiders incinerated, and the other two looking a lot worse for wear. They still fought though, keeping their distance with a web attack, both of which failed. Dan narrowed his eyes and whipped out his new crossbow and planted a bolt in both of their heads with a swift, surprisingly easy movement.

Dan smirked to himself as he went to retrieve his bolts, thinking over the fight. This was actually pretty easy, maybe they weren’t as hopeless as they thought they were. He turned to tell Phil, but froze when he saw his boyfriend. He was breathing heavily while smoke furled up from the bright flames that filled his mouth. The wings on his back were twitching in time with his heaving shoulders, and the thick, heavy tail swished back and forth angrily. “Phil? Are you-” He cut himself off when Phil turned to him, blue eyes turned ice cold as he snarled and opened his mouth wider to deliver a flame attack.

Dan shrieked and dropped to the ground as a column of flame roared right over where his head had been a mere second before. When the heat died down he lifted a shaking hand from where it was covering his face to look at Phil. He was trembling like a leaf, his eyes were wide and horrified, his hands were clasped over his mouth and he looked like he was going to be sick. “ _Dan_ ,” he croaked, and flinched at the puff of smoke that left his mouth. When he reached out, Dan recoiled, and he crouched down into a tight ball, clutching the horns on top of his head. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Dan. Fuck. Dan, I’m so sorry. _Fuck_.”

Dan stood and hesitantly walked towards Phil. He placed a hand on Phil’s, and steadfastly refused to flinch when Phil whipped his head up and blinked at him. His eyes were clear and scared and more human than Dan had seen them since they showed up here. His Phil was definitely back. “Phil? Are you… okay? What happened?”

“I- I don’t know?” Phil hiccupped. “We were fighting and those spiders bit me and I just kind of zoned out and I guess then we weren’t fighting but you were there and in my head you were an enemy and- oh my god, I almost _killed_ you. Dan, god, I’m so sorry.”

Dan bit his lip, then fell to his knees and wrapped his boyfriend in a hug. Phil stiffened for a moment before melting into Dan’s embrace and hiding his face in Dan’s neck. Dan gently scratched his nails over the thin scales around the base of the horns and spikes on Phil’s head, and marveled at the almost purr it produced. “It’s okay,” he cooed, making sure to keep his petting up. “There, it’s alright. We’re both okay.”

“You almost died, and I would have been here all alone and it would have been all my fault,” Phil whispered.

“You would never hurt me, and we both know that,” Dan said sternly.

“Dan, I just-”

“You missed,” Dan interrupted. Dan could almost taste Phil’s question, so he elaborated. “You shot high. Even if I hadn’t ducked, I’d have been fine. We were at point blank range, and you missed. There was something in you that recognized me, I know it. I don’t know what came over you, but you fought it and won. You’re still the same Phil who made it his own personal mission to look after me eight years ago, and you’re still the man I’ve loved and trusted for just as long. It’s alright, Phil.”

Phil sat frozen for a moment, then pulled Dan into a tight hug. “God, what would I do without you?”

“I think the typical answer is crash and burn, but you’d probably do them backwards,” Dan joked. Phil let out a watery, weak laugh and allowed Dan to hoist him back onto his feet. “Alright, then. We’ve got a witch to find.”

“The sooner we get out of here, the better,” Phil agreed emphatically. Dan smiled at him for a moment before he realized something: he hadn’t held Phil’s hand since they found themselves here. Sure, they didn’t casually hold hands all that often in their own world and Phil probably hadn’t even noticed, but, damnit, Dan wanted to hold his boyfriend’s hand. So, he did, and if the look of shocked wonder Phil shot their intertwined fingers was any indication, he had taken note of the lack of affection.

Dan gave him a warm smile, and tugged him along down the path. Dan breathed a sigh of relief as what he presumed to be Estellaria’s keep. The first level looked like any cottage out of any children’s story book, but there was a tall tower popping out of the middle of it, topped with a bright purple onion cap roof. “Think this is the right place?” Dan joked, stepping into the clearing that surrounded it.

As soon as they cleared the tree line, everything stopped. Dan and Phil watched with bated breath as a hush fell over the clearing, and time stood still. Everything hung motionless for what could have been a second or a year, then there was a quiet pop and a hiss and they watched in horror as a giant snake, easily over twelve feet long, coiled into existence before their very eyes Against the desaturated world, the snake’s galactic purple pattern stood out beautifully, but Dan was a little too preoccupied to notice its beauty as it leveled uncomfortably intelligent eyes on them.

It flickered its tongue out at them a few times then smiled in a way that reminded Dan a bit too much of Jafar from Aladdin. “You weren’t invited here,” it said in a hissing voice that managed to sound both like warm honey and like something that shouldn’t be able to make noise at all. “You don’t even belong to this world, much lesssss my missssstressssss’ssssss home. I don’t take well to intrudersssss, yet I avoid fighting when I can. If you two will turn back and never return, I’d be more than happy to let you leave unharmed.”

Dan caught Phil’s eye and he nodded. Dan stiffened his upper lip in determination and said clearly,” “We’re not going anywhere. We need to see Estellaria and we’re not about to let some overgrown worm stop us now.”

The snake seemed like it would have shrugged if it had the shoulders to do so and said, “Fair enough.” It darted forward to bite Dan, but he managed to shriek and leap out of the way, falling on his ass while Phil leapt forward on its head, biting and slashing anything he could reach with his claws. It hissed in pain and reared back, trying to throw Phil off, and leaving it’s belly vulnerable. Dan quickly fumbled with his crossbow and fired, sinking two bolts in its flesh.

It let out a shriek, and deciding that it wasn’t going to shake Phil off any time soon, it aimed at Dan again and spat venom at him. However, with Phil going to town on it’s face, it missed, dissolving a nearby tree. Dan cheered him on and shot again,darting around behind it to see if he could find any other weaknesses.

This was apparently a mistake, however, because as he leapt over its tail, it smacked him backwards and dove down with a vicious bite. Dan howled in pain as fire licked his blood, making him writhe in pain on the ground. Phil yelped, delivered two cones of fire right between the snake’s eyes and was leaping down to join Dan before the snake even hit the ground. “Dan! Oh, my god, are you okay?”

Dan shuddered and gave a tiny little smile. “Well, I’ve been bitten by a giant snake so I suppose I could be better.”

Phil let out a near hysterical chuckle, and scooped Dan up in his arms. He couldn’t imagine how Philip managed to live like this; Dan was so much more fragile than he was in this form. “Don’t you worry about it. Estellaria will get you fixed right up. I’ll make her.”

“You’ll make me do what, exactly?”

Phil whirled around at the familiar voice and watched as Estellaria came floating down from a tower window, surrounded by a sparkling purple light. When she landed and the light faded, Phil noticed that her hair, still purple, seemed to sparkle and shimmer with its own light source and the glowing marks on her cheeks definitely weren’t paint.

“Your pet snake bit my boyfriend, and I think he’s going to die if you don’t do something quick,” Phil said in a rush. He gestured towards where the snake’s body should have been, but saw that the space was completely empty and there was no trace of a fight.

Estellaria crossed her arms, clearly unimpressed. “Well, I know Vedette, and it wouldn’t have attacked without warning, so I think this falls squarely on your shoulders.

Phil gritted his teeth, but something primal within him reacted to the raw power Estellaria was emanating and he knew fighting her was a bad idea. He clutched Dan tighter and looked at her with pleading eyes. “Please help him. I’ll do anything.”

She pursed her lips for a moment before sighing and snapping her fingers. Dan sat up ramrod straight in Phil’s arms and Phil tried his best to refrain from pulling Dan into the tightest hug of his life. He barely succeeded. “Your friend will be fine. You can put him down now.” Phil ignored this bit of advice, and she raised a brow, but said nothing. “I was actually expecting you two to show up. I’m honestly surprised that you all made it to this point so quickly, but the watch never lies.” She pulled out the watch in question, a large silver pocket watch with a rounded hourglass etched on it. “As a matter of fact, your little friends should be calling you with some interesting information riiiight… abooooout… now.”

**Phil, bad news.**

Phil narrowed his eyes at Estellaria, but she just curled her lips up into a self-satisfied smirk. I **’m guessing it has something to do with Stella.**

**Damn right. Apparently, she doesn’t exist here.**

**What?** Dan cut in quickly. **She has to exist. We talked to her! She gave me some of her crumpet!**

 **Look,** that was Philip, **we called the castle and they say they’ve never even heard of anyone named Stella working there. I even called Martyn and he just said that he worked with a man named Markus and that’s who gave you the rooms. Something’s going on here, and I don’t like it.**

 **We may have someone who knows exactly what’s going on** Phil thought, finally putting Dan down so he could turn to Estellaria with his chest puffed out to its most intimidating. “Alright, spill. Where is she? Where’s Stella? We know there’s a version of you in our world, where is she?”

“Oh, there definitely is and Estella Farfalla in your world. However, she’s a mousy, private woman who lives in the Italian countryside and has never traveled more than a four hours from her front door, much less obtained a job in England.”

“Then who was that we talked to?”

“Oh, you’re not the brightest candle on the shelf, are you?” she said with what sounded like genuine sympathy. “Come on, now. _Think_! Those lizard brains are mainly wired to eat people, but they’re a multi-purpose tool.”

“Look, we get it,” Dan snapped. “Somehow or another, we were talking to you. What I want to know is how.”

Estellaria looked absolutely delighted at Dan’s question. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Call up your friends and tell them to take two steps back and watch.”

**Daniel, I need you and Philip to take a couple steps back.**

**What? Why?**

**Would you please just fucking do it?**

**Alright, fine, but only because Philip is having this same conversation.**

Estellaria smiled a cunning smile, and with a flourish, she pulled out a pair of scissors. Phil was about to question her, but she opened the blades and flicked them forwards and up like she was trying to cut the air.

And she did.

Phil watched, mouth agape, as she snipped through the air, a swirling blue rip in reality formed behind her scissors. When it was a few metres tall - definitely big enough to easily crawl through - she put her scissors away, and just stuck her head straight through the portal. Dan and Phil both made noises of shocked protest, but she just held up a hand telling them to stop. She immerged moments later with Daniel and Philip’s hands grasped tightly in her own.

They blinked away the spots in their eyes as they looked around the clearing. In one quick synchronized movement, they both recoiled in shock and horror when they saw Dan and Phil standing in front of them. Daniel was the first to react and he snarled, “What the fuck is going on? Who are you? What did you do? Put us _back_.”

Estellaria hummed and looked at Daniel and Philip, who looked like they were about to fight everyone in the clearing with their bare hands. “Let’s go inside, shall we?

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Daniel fidgeted with the teacup in his hands as he glared around the room. The fortune teller had teleported them all into her study up in her tower, which Daniel hated because teleportation spells always made him sick to his stomach, and now she was just flitting around avoiding all their questions. Dan and Phil seemed to be fine with this whole situation and just drank their tea while sitting disgustingly close to one another. He considered saying something to them (it was bad enough being stuck in a the body of the person dating his best friend, but he didn’t deserve to have to watch his own body do it) but Philip caught his eye and subtly shook his head. At least in all of this Philip was acting normal. He was casing the room with his sharp eyes and his fingers drummed on the cup of his now cold tea.

Daniel’s blood caught fire when Philip finished looking Estellaria over and gave him a look. Daniel raised a brow to confirm what he thought he had read, and Phil just smirked and shot a pointed look at Estellaria’s turned back. Daniel ran his fingers over the handle of the clearly magical dagger he had palmed on the way up. He held his breath and carefully, silently made his way across the room, right up behind Estellaria.

Then he stabbed her in the back.

There was a sudden flurry of movement when Philip tackled Dan to take his crossbow and Daniel stole the magic scissors that had brought him here. He darted back to Philip’s side and brandished a whip he grabbed from a display. It had been a very long time since he’d used a whip, and he was rusty, but he was still more than capable of doing some kind of damage with it. He snapped it once to show he meant business and glared at the fortune teller while Philip had the crossbow pointed at their doubles to be sure that there wasn’t any funny business. He held up the scissors with his free hand and demanded, “All right. Answers, _now_. What are these things? Who are you? Why did you do this to us?”

Estellaria clucked her tongue in an almost bored way and pulled out her pocket watch. She gave it a quick look and raised her eyes in mild shock. “You’re actually a bit ahead of schedule. I guess even the Fates are sure of how short that temper of yours is,” she said pleasantly. “Regardless, we’re not throwing off the stream if we get this ball rolling a little sooner than planned. What you have in your hand is a pair of interdimensional scissors.” Daniel took a moment to give her a shocked look, and she laughed. “Yes, anywhere in the planar system is available to me with just a couple snips. I’m going to combine your last two questions as they’re very interwoven.

“My name is Estellaria Butterfly, I’m a wizard who studies Divination, a scientist doing research on the idea of a multiverse, and an acolyte of the god Cyndor. I’ve followed him for years and it’s been mostly silence, but a few weeks ago he came to me with a quest. Obviously, I could hardly say no, so I orchestrated for you two to be on either side of that mirror so that I could make the swap. I genuinely don’t know what he has planned, but according to this-” she pulled her watch back out, “you’re meant to go see him when you’re done here. I suppose you’ll find out before me.”

“Wait a second,” Phil said, keeping his hands up in surrender. “We don’t have to go see this guy at all. We have the answer here, let’s just switch back and go home.”

“Oh, ah, yes, no can do,” Estellaria answered. “See the thing about the Plane of Thought is that it’s super not good with magic, that’s why we haven’t been able to get there with magic other than my scissors, and Cyndor gave those to me. The both of you are in magical bodies now, and magical bodies last for about an hour over there before having to return back here. Besides, dear, you’re a dragon. I doubt you could live a normal life bearing scales, wings and a tail.”

“Plus, I doubt it would be very culturally appropriate for me, a white guy, to just show up on camera suddenly grey with no explanation,” Dan pointed out.

“Most importantly, any solution to this that doesn’t wind up with me back as a dragon is no solution for me,” Philip cut in.

Estellaria clapped her hands in delight. “Ah, good, good. You’ve gotten to the part of the discussion where you’ve decided that going to see Cyndor is the only way. Go on then! I’ve packed you all lunches, but you really must get out of my home now. Here’s your food and a map to Cyndor. Have fun!” She shoved some paper bags in their hands and ushered them out the door. “All right! Never come back!” Then she slammed the door in their face.

Philip growled and reared back and punched the door with all his strength. There was a loud, unpleasant crunching sound and turned back to them, cradling his hand to his chest. “I am in serious pain, and I’m pretty sure I broke my hand just now.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and grabbed Philip’s hand and looked it over. Sure enough, the fingers were twisted and curled at unnatural and uncomfortable angles. “Well, it’s definitely broken. I hope you know some way to fight things without using your hands.”

“Can’t we use a potion or something?” Philip asked. “You get mangled all the time and a sip later you’re fit as a fiddle.”

“Potions don’t fix bone,” Daniel corrected. “Don’t you remember when I broke my ankle and was laid up for like a month?”

“It would have been a week, but you kept trying to do things before you were healed.”

“Still. All the potions in the world won’t help you now.”

Philip grumbled under his breath and looked over at Dan and Phil. “Well? Do either of you have any medical kits?”

“Er, no,” Dan said awkwardly. “But we’re not too far outside of Lundy and we met someone there who might be able to help.”

Daniel pursed his lips and nodded. “Fine. Lead the way.”

Dan nodded, grabbed Phil’s hand and turned to walk into the trees. Daniel fell into step at Philip’s side, and when Dan and Phil were out of earshot he muttered, “Are you all right?”

Philip shot him a wry grin. “Well, this body is incredibly fragile, and I hate it, but I’m not dying, if that’s what you’re after.”

Daniel snorted. “Well, so long as you don’t keel over any time soon. I hate to say it, but I kind of like having you around.”

Philip fidgeted with his hands and stared down at the ground. “Yeah, about that.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes and bit his lip. “What about it?”

Philip sighed and leaned his head back. “Okay, assuming we do manage to make it out of this alive, I’m going to be going into hibernation.”

“How- How long does that last?”

“It can last up to 500 years or more.”

Daniel froze and looked at him with wide eyes. “500 _years_? Philip, I could die before you even wake up.”

Philip nodded tersely. “I know. It may not happen, but this whole ordeal has really drained me. It takes a lot of magic to keep me going, and being in that world without magic was exhausting.”

Daniel scowled and kicked a rock down the path. “This is shitty,” he said, definitely not pouting at all. “I’m going to kick this Cyndor’s ass so hard.”

Philip smirked at him. “You’re going to kick a god’s ass because I’m going to hibernate? I’m touched. I didn’t know you cared that much.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and said nothing, following along behind Dan and Phil. They walked in silence (well, he and Philip did; Dan and Phil chatted together the whole time) all the way into town. Everyone they met shot Dan and Phil suspicious looks, but they just responded with charming smiles. Between that and the fact that the duo was now a quartet, everyone kept off their backs. Daniel was almost jealous. Within a few minutes, they were knocking on the front door of a homely inn. A round faced woman with a tall white oak staff opened the door and gave them a friendly smile and a blank stare. “Can I help you?”

“Hello, Miss Averdene,” Phil said pleasantly. “We’re looking for a place to stay tonight, and were wondering if you had any rooms. We’re friends of Twill; could you tell them that Da- er, James and Michael are here? And that we brought our, um, brothers.”

“Absolutely!” she beamed. “Any friend of Twill’s is welcome here at any time. I’ll show you up to your rooms. How many do you need?”

“Two, if you have them.”

“We do. They’re both single beds, though.”

Daniel was about to open his mouth and ask for a third room, but Phil cut him off. “Oh, no. That’s perfectly fine. Also, um, if you have it, we’d really like a roll of bandages. My brother broke his hand.”

Miss Averdene smiled and went led the way to the front desk, tapping her staff to feel for any obstacles. She ducked behind the counter and within moments emerged clutching two keys and a roll of strong, thin cloth that she handed over to Philip. “This way, boys!” she chirped, headed for the stairs. Once they were away from the more crowded tavern that made up the entrance, she quit using her staff and they had a hard time keeping up with her quick, spry pace. She flung open two doors right next to each other, with a “Here you go! I’ll be sure to send Twill right up,” and with a swish of her long apron, she was gone.

“Come on,” Dan ordered, stepping into one of the rooms. “We need to go over what we’re doing.” He and Phil sat on the bed, perfectly in sync, and pulled out the map, flattening it over the blanket. “Okay, so it’s actually not that far to Cyndor’s fortress. Phil, you can make that in a night, right?”

“If we could leave a little before sunset, I can probably get that far with a couple hours to spend with this guy. Daniel and Philip will probably be stuck there for the day, or they’ll have to fly by day, but it’s better than us being stuck like this for an extra day, I think.”

“Yeah. What do you two think?”

“This will be fine, but Daniel and I will need supplies,” Philip said, looking over the map.

“No problem. Twill knows everyone and everything in this town. There’s some place here they would trust enough. You two get some sleep now and we’ll do some research on Cyndor. Phil, don’t you have a book that talks about him?”

Phil looked up from the books he was already flipping through. “Two, at least. With any luck we’ll know as much as possible for tomorrow.”

There was a sharp rap on the door and Dan grinned. “Perfect timing.” He opened the door and on the other side was a tall, gangly Drow leaning on the doorframe. “Twill!”

“Hello, pumpkin,” they cooed flirtatiously, pinching Dan’s cheek. “I heard my two favorite boys were back already. Miss me?” Their eyes slid over to where Daniel and Philip were standing with their arms crossed, and they looked delighted. “Dan, you’ve _got_ to tell me what is going on.”

“Meet Daniel and Philip,” Dan introduced. “The real Daniel and Philip, that is. Somehow, Phil and I swapped places with them and now we’re like this.”

“So, this is what you two actually look like?” they asked, waltzing up to Daniel and Philip. “I must say, you’re both rather nice to look at. If I had any interest in humans, you’d be just my type.”

Dan flushed darkly and laughed off their comment, but Daniel just scowled. “Look, can you help us or not?” he snapped.

Twill’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I think I’m already helping you by not turning you into the police, and making sure you have a place to lay low in this city from here on. But, if you think that I’m not doing that well enough, I can always send a runner for the captain.”

Daniel growled under his breath. “That won’t be necessary. Look, we just need a place where we can gear up. We’re going to kick a god’s ass, and we need more than a club and a dinky crossbow. Can you tell us where to buy that stuff?”

Twill tapped their lower lip in thought for a moment before they snapped and said, “I think I can do you one better. Let me talk to one of my guys and I’ll get back with you in the morning.” They turned to Phil with a sly grin. “Also, did I hear something about fighting a god? What _are_ you two up to?”

Phil laughed. “Hopefully getting home. With any luck, you won’t be seeing us again. Which is a bit of a shame honestly.”

They waved him off. “No, no. I understand. Besides, I’ll have these two to play with.”

“I’ll admit that connections in Lundy would be helpful,” Philip said. He shot Daniel a look and he didn’t need telepathy to know it was more for his sake than Philip’s.

“All right then.” They nodded, clapping their hands together. “I’ll leave you be, and see if I can get a hold of my friend. If not, I’ll figure out what weapon stall would best suit you. Either way, I’ll see you four in the morning. Good niiiiight!” With that, they were gone.

“You two should probably get some sleep,” Phil advised. “Dan and I will stay in here and see what we can find.”

“We’ll meet downstairs just before sundown?” Philip confirmed.

“They actually serve dinner right around then, so let’s just meet for that,” Dan suggested. “We’ll eat and then go kick some ass.”

Daniel just grunted and without saying another word, shuffled his way to the next room. He meant to stay awake to talk everything over with Philip, but as soon as his head hit the pillow he was dead to the world.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dan smiled as he watched the people in the tavern laugh and sing together. Twill had been kind enough to make him a special dinner that catered specifically to his new Drow sensitivities, and he was really enjoying it. He and Phil had laughed at the plate full of black food, but it had all been incredibly tasty and reminded Dan of that time he’d tried going vegan. Maybe he’d try again when he got back.

There was a loud cheer and the band started up a bright, upbeat tune and everyone started partnering off. Dan looked around in confusion, and, as if summoned, Twill appeared at his side. “Go ask Phil to dance,” they ordered, plucking a mushroom off his plate.

“What? Why?”

“Because this is a traditional dance for married and betrothed people,” they answered plainly.

Dan chuckled and tried not to blush. “Phil and I aren’t engaged.”

Twill raised a brow. “Neither are half the people out there. Besides, maybe you should change that.”

Dan bit his lower lip. “But we don’t know the dance.”

“Easy. Just get in the back of the line and watch. Now, quit stalling or you’ll miss it.”

Dan beamed and scurried off to the bar where Phil was looking at the map one more time. “Dance with me.”

Phil blinked, clearly startled. “What?”

Dan grinned, weirdly breathless. “Dance with me.”

Phil gave the room a quick, reflexive sweep before looking at Dan with pure delight. He hopped down off the bar stool and Dan grabbed his hand to take him to the dancefloor. Twill was right, the dance was incredibly easy. Along with the rest of the room, they grabbed hands and stepped right up to one another’s side and then swapped off circling the other then joined in the line to duck under everyone else’s arm arch, split up, and ran back to the end to do it all again. As the song repeated its declarations of loving and protecting each other forever, it got faster and faster until Dan and Phil were laughing and stumbling all over one another as they tried to keep up with the more experienced dancers. As they danced, Dan looked up into Phil’s eyes that were shining down at him with more love and affection that should be possible, and he thought about the last thing Twill had said to him. _Maybe I should do something about that._

All too soon, the song ended, and they both made their way back to where they had left Twill, only to find them chatting with Daniel. As they approached, the conversation was abruptly cut off, leaving Twill looking very satisfied with something and Daniel almost embarrassed. “So, did you two manage to buy some good weapons?” Phil asked, sitting across from the pair.

“Better,” Daniel answered. “Twill got one of their wizard friends to teleport us to the cave so we could grab all of our old stuff. I asked if he’d be willing to just teleport us to Cyndor, but he got mad and said that he only burned that high of a spell slot on us as a personal favor to Twill and that he had better things to do than that. Then he turned into a cat and scampered off.”

“Adonin Silverkin,” said Twill proudly. “He managed to accidentally get himself turned into a cat, but he’s got in under control now.”

Daniel looked at him weirdly but shook his head and went on. “Anyway. Philip went out to get some first aid supplies and a spellbook.”

“What does he need a spellbook for?”

“Well, he can’t very well fight with his hand like that, can he? He says he’s going to try to tap into any magic that he can and see if he can just make it work. It’s our best shot at any rate.”

“Hopefully he gets here soon, the sun’s almost down and we need to get out of here,” Phil said.

The front door swung open and Daniel grinned. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Come on. It’s go time.”

“Don’t forget to tell me all about it when you get back,” Twill said with a sly grin. “Have fun!”

Daniel rolled his eyes and stomped off, but Dan and Phil hung back for a moment to say proper goodbyes. “You know, I only met you yesterday, but I’m gonna miss you, Twill,” Dan said with a bittersweet smile.

“Well, with any luck you’ll find the Twill of your world. I doubt they’ll be as wonderful as the original, but you can try.”

Dan laughed and pulled Phil outside where Daniel and Philip were waiting. Philip led the way to a good take off spot he had found earlier, and before they knew it, they were in the air on their way to fight a god. The flight was long but easy, so Daniel and Philip took this chance to catch a few extra winks. Naturally, Dan got a bit bored and did what he always did when he was bored. He talked to Phil.

**Is it just me, or does this remind you of one of those self care memes? Self care is getting body switched with your magical creature selves from another plane and fist fighting god to get back home.**

**Oh my god, you’re right, it totally does.**

**Right?!**

**You should Tweet that when we get home.**

Dan smiled happily, thinking of finally getting to sleep in his bed with Phil again. Speaking of Phil, **Hey, how are you doing with all this flying?**

**Honestly?**

**Do I ever want anything but?**

**Well, my shoulders hurt like a bitch and I’m exhausted, but we’re so close to getting home that I’m not about to stop.**

**You sure?**

**Sure. This can’t be any harder than filing taxes.**

**The first time you filed our taxes you were up for two days straight, and you drank so much coffee you were practically colorblind for three days.**

Phil laughed at that, which shook his whole body, waking Philip up. “Are we there yet?” he demanded sleepily.

Dan shook his head. “Not yet. We’re probably about a half hour out, though.”

Philip nodded his head solemnly. “Good. We’re staying on time. What did you two learn about Cyndor?”

Dan shrugged. “Not much. He’s really old and wasn’t well known back then since he’s such a minor god. He’s from the Suel religion and he’s a servant of Lendor.”

“Yes, but what does he _do_?”

“That’s the thing,” Dan frowned. “His main thing is just to watch and record everything that happens and keep the time stream from being disrupted by some greater power. He’s very non-interference, and even if he wasn’t why would he do this? It’s not like any of us are time travelers or something who wants to fuck shit up.”

Philip groaned and ran his fingers through his hair in a way that was so reminiscent of Phil that Dan had to bite his lip to keep himself from kissing the worried crease off of his forehead. “I’ve been alive for centuries, and I’ve never dealt with gods,” he admitted. “I don’t even follow a god really. I have no idea what to expect from this, and, to be perfectly frank, I’m terrified.”

Dan jerked, looking at him in shock. “What? But Daniel seems fine.”

“Daniel is the main reason I’m worried,” Philip said tersely. “The way I see it, Phil is the most likely person to survive this. The rest of us? We’re all in fragile, flesh sacks that break over nothing.” He gestured with his broken hand for emphasis. “Against a god we’re useless. Worse than useless.”

Dan frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair.” At Philip’s confused look, he explained, “Daniel’s been keeping up with you for all these years, hasn’t he? Well, this is definitely going to make things harder for him, but I doubt he’s about to roll over and give up. I know I’m not giving up anything until I’m back home, so either you can get on this positivity train, or you can stay at the landing site, because I’m not about to let a quitter get my boyfriend’s body killed. I’ll admit I’m not super fond of dating a dragon.” This caused another full body chuckle from Phil and Dan grinned.

Philip raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Well, I guess I’m out numbered. Let’s go fight a god.”

The rest of the flight passed with Dan, Philip, and Daniel - who had woken up about ten minutes before landing - talking about their plan of attack. Dan was going to come in on the back of Phil in dragon to cause a diversion form while Daniel and Philip snuck around the edges and tried to get the drop on him from behind. It wasn’t exactly the most elegant plan, but it’s all they had. They had landed and Dan and Phil were about to kick down the door when Daniel snapped his fingers.

“Dan, I have something for you, I almost forgot!” He reached into his bag and started pulling something comically long out. One end was sharp and pointed, but the other was a protected leather handle and this was the side Daniel gave him. “This is a magical lance. It doesn’t take too much training, just ride on Phil and point it at whoever you want to stab.”

Dan nodded and took the weapon, marveling at how light it felt in his hand. “I’ll give it a shot. Come on, Phil.”

As he climbed back on, careful not to stab himself or Phil with his new toy, he felt Phil’s mind enter his own. **You ready for this?**

He snorted and smiled. **Of course not. But you’re here, so I can give it a shot.** He felt Phil chuckle, then rear back up on his hind legs and knock in the door.

Inside was chaos. As soon as the doors flew open bats of all sizes swarmed the air around them. Dan swung wildly with his mace, trying to hit anything, but they just flew around him. They didn’t attack, they just flew in a very close formation, making it impossible to see anything. This gave a previously unnoticed giant ice man to swing his greataxe at Phil. Fortunately, its attack bounced harmlessly off Phil’s thick scales, but its partner got in a good hit, knocking him back.

Phil snarled, and opened his mouth, but instead of fire, a cone of white gas unfurled and surrounded the two giants. Dan shot Phil a questioning look, but the giants seemed to have become exhausted and Dan wasn’t about to pass up that opportunity. Grabbing Daniel’s lance in his left hand, he scrambled up Phil’s neck and stabbed the closest giant in the arm. When he removed it, the wound glowed a bright gold before dimming back down. The giant looked startled for a moment before taking its axe and swinging. The first his slashed Dan right across the stomach, but the second was with the flat of the blade which sent him flying back in a moaning heap.

**Dan! Are you okay?**

**Honestly, I’ve been better, Philly.**

Phil was about to respond, but the second giant sluggishly lifted its axe to attack. Before it could do so, Phil narrowed his eyes and shot a cone of flames in its face. Dan managed to sit back up as it screamed in pain and fired off three bolts in a line across its forehead. The first giant reared back to attack, but Phil grabbed the axe in his jaw and knocked the giant off balance. With a weak roar, the second giant attacked again, sinking its axe in Phil’s side.

Phil went to take it out, but Dan sent a quick, **I’ve got this one** so he leveled his gaze on the dazed giant and pounces with slashing teeth and claws while Dan shot another round of arrows into the other, finishing it off. The giant, not appreciating Phil’s bodily attack, weakly lifted a rock to try and smash over Phil’s head, but Phil headbutted it out of its hands.  
Phil was about to attack, but he heard Dan shout, “Phil! Watch it!” and jerked with a start. He looked up just in time to see what he had thought was a giant, featureless statue in the middle of the cave come striding towards him with a giant sword drawn. Before he could do anything, the statue swung its sword twice, slashing him with both swings. Phil yelped in pain, but let out another cone of fire.

With a war cry, Dan jumped off Phil’s back and onto the downed frost giant, lance at the ready. He stabbed it down right in a chink of its armor. “Daniel! Philip! We could really use some help!”

“At your service,” Philip smirked, stepping out of the shadows. Dan looked over to see Philip raise a hand with his finger pointed towards him and the giant. Without a second though, he jumped to the ground just as the giant was engulfed in flames. The force from the blast knocked Dan through the air and he tumbled to a stop right at Philip’s feet. Philip quickly helped him up to his feet and they turned towards where Phil was still doing battle with the statue.

“What-” Dan panted. “What is that thing?”

“Well, I think it’s Cyndor,” Philip said frankly. They both ducked out of the way from a blast of fire and Philip grinned. “Phil seems to be doing well, too.”

“We have to help them!” Dan insisted, leaping forwards. But, Philip grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back. “What are you _doing_?”

“Fixing you,” Philip snapped. “You look close to death. We’ll help in just a moment; Daniel’s got backup covered for now.”

As Dan watched, Daniel suddenly appeared up on the ceiling and dropped right down onto Cyndor’s neck, hacking away with a pair of daggers. Cyndor reached back to swat Daniel away, but he flipped out of reach, leaving Cyndor open for Phil to attack with his tail.

 **We’re pretty good at this!** Phil broadcasted as Daniel stabbed with his trusty daggers again.

 **Sure, we are, bud** Daniel responded. **Just make sure you let me know before you light this asshole up.**

Cyndor moved suddenly and stabbed Phil causing the dragon to let out a shriek of pain. **I’m lighting him on fire!** He warned with just enough time for Daniel to leap out of the way. By the time the smoke had cleared, Dan had charged in with his lance leveled and Philip was shouting arcane words that filled Phil’s chest with vigor. **About time you two got here** , he joked.

 **I’ll have you know we kicked that giant’s ass** Dan bragged. **And we’re about to kick this guy’s ass.**

Daniel leapt forward to do his stabbing again, but Cyndor slashed him straight out of the air with his sword. Phil yelped in shock and tried once again set the god ablaze, but he nimbly ducked out of the way, but was still badly scorched. Dan was about to charge forward again, but he held up his massive hands and shouted **_“ENOUGH!”_** The whole world seemed to tremble with his word and the three standing party members froze against their wishes. _**“YOU FOUR HAVE BROUGHT YOURSELVES BEFORE ME. WHAT IS IT YOU SEEK?”**_

Phil glanced around the room and melted into his humanoid shape, vaguely pleased to know that it looked more human now. “All we want is to go home.”

This seemed to snap the spell, and Philip darted to where Daniel was leaned up against a wall, clutching his side. Cyndor looked them over, his completely featureless face predictably difficult to read. _**“NO. I CANNOT ALLOW IT. YOU FOUR DISRUPT THE STREAM.”**_

Phil blinked in shock. “I’m sorry, we do what now?”

Cyndor growled and turned away from them and waved his hand through the air. As he did so, 25 colorful discs of light materialized in thin air and began dancing around each other in what Phil recognized to be the planar system he and Dan had spent so long studying the night before. _**“BEHOLD. THE PLANES OF EXISTENCE. MY DOMINION.”**_

“We’ve all seen the planar system,” Daniel snapped. “You haven’t told us jack shit about what’s happening now, though. I want to know why we’re stuck like this and what you’re going to do to fix this mess.”

Cyndor looked directly at him, and though he didn’t have them, Phil was pretty sure he narrowed his eyes. _**“I DO NOT DOUBT THAT YOU HAVE SEEN YOUR PLANAR SYSTEM. WHAT YOU FAIL TO COMPREHEND IS WHAT LIES BEYOND.”**_ He waved his hands again in a grand parting gesture and the image of the planar system zoomed out in a dramatic light show. Now, the entire cave was filled with the same image of the planar system. Or, well, they weren’t exactly the same. At first glance they appeared identical, but upon closer investigation, Phil noticed that they all moved in slightly different ways. One here had the outer planes spiralling up and around it before falling to the side only to do it all again, and this one here had the plane of magic cutting straight through the prime material and thought planes. ** _“THIS IS BUT A FRACTION OF THE WORLDS THAT EXIST. ALL DIFFERENT, BUT THEY ALL SHARE A LIKENESS. HOWEVER, WHAT I AM INTERESTED IN IS THE FOUR OF YOU.”_**

“What about us?” Phil asked cautiously.

Cyndor waved his hand again, and this time a larger disc appeared right in front of him so they could all see. On this disc flashed pictures of Dan and Phil and Daniel and Philip living lives they never lived. _**“THE MULTIVERSE IS HELD TOGETHER BY THREADS THAT CONNECT THEM CALLED CONSTANTS. YOU ARE CONSTANTS. IN EVERY WORLD THERE IS A DANIEL AND A PHILIP WHO FIND EACH OTHER. THEY DIFFER FROM SYSTEM TO SYSTEM, BUT IN ALL CASES, THE DANIEL AND PHILIP OF THE THOUGHT PLANE MIRROR THE DANIEL AND PHILIP OF THE PRIME MATERIAL PLANE.”**_

“What, exactly, does that mean?” Philip cut in. “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but from what I gather, there are countless versions of us? Not just the two here?”

_**“IN ALL WORLDS THERE IS A DANIEL AND PHILIP WHO CONNECT THE PRIME MATERIAL PLANE TO THE PLANE OF THOUGHT. THEY ARE ALL FOUR ONE AND THE SAME. HERE YOU DIFFERENT. YOUR DIFFERENCE IS WHAT DISRUPTS THE STREAM, AND THAT IS WHY I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO GO BACK AS YOU WERE. THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THIS IS TO TRAIN YOU TO BE THE SAME.”** _

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” All eyes turned on Dan who had been surprisingly quiet the whole conversation. “I don’t care if we have this magical destiny that we didn’t know of. You can’t expect us to be the same; our lives are too different. I don’t know if you noticed, but Philip is a dragon.”

**_“THAT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. YOU MUST – ”_ **

“Also, Daniel is an orphan who was basically kidnapped and also discriminated against at every turn. Phil and I are a couple of rich white dudes who’ve basically had whatever we wanted handed to us our whole lives. Obviously, we’re going to be different. We’re different people.”

“There’s no way Philip and I could do what Dan and Phil do,” Daniel added. “We were only there for a few days, but the pressure of millions of eyes watching your every move was far too much for us to handle.”

“ _ **YOU KNOW NOT – ”**_

“In addition, have you ever considered our similarities?” Philip asked slyly. “You emphasized that in all worlds Daniel and Philips belong together? Well, here we are.”

“Our relationships may be different, but that doesn’t make them any less valid than the other,” Phil added. “Aside from the romance stuff, Dan is my best friend and the most important person in my life. These two like to act differently, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same case there. We may not be the same, but we found each other despite all the odds. I’m pretty sure that counts for something.”

Cyndor looked like he was about to argue, but Dan stepped forward, an angry glint in his eye. “All right, we’ve tried doing this the nice way. You want to see me angry? Well, here we go. I know that elves live for a very long time and I know you know that this elf is still very young. You also know that dragons live even longer and that this dragon is also young. If you don’t get us back where we belong then I can assure you that you’ll never forget about this elf and dragon. We’ll work day in and day out trying to get home, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. In fact, I’d like to see you try.”

There was a sputtering cough and they turned to see Daniel gaping at Dan. “To be perfectly honest, there’s not much we can do on our side,” he shrugged. Then he grinned that Phil had seen on Dan’s face many times before something terrible happened. “However, I can still steal stuff. You send us back and we’re going to get farther away from this order that you seem to want so bad. You’ll have wanted criminals Daniel and Philip studying in the library and smiling at old ladies and you’ll have role models Dan and Phil robbing everyone around them blind. Your choice.”

Cyndor growled and clapped his hands and Phil reached out one hand towards Dan before he fell into a deep sleep.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Being an elf, Daniel didn’t sleep much, and only the most powerful of spells could magically cause him to sleep, so he didn’t wake up very often. He did, however, have enough experience to know that there were some ways to wake up that were nice - after a good 12 hours of sleep, safe and comfortable in your own bed - and some ways that weren’t - having the cave you were magically drugged in shake with the thunderous shouts of an angry god being yelled at by an angrier god.

_**“HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?”** _

_**“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WHAT I HAVE DONE WAS NECESSARY.”** _

_**“THERE ARE MORTALS FROM THE PLANE OF THOUGHT ON THIS PLANE. THE CONSTANTS ARE ALL ON ONE PLANE. NOTHING NECESSITATES THIS.”** _

_**“THEY WERE NEVER MEANT TO JOIN TOGETHER. I HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING THE WITCH WOULD BETRAY ME.”** _

Daniel glances around at his companions who were still sleeping. Well, he didn’t have time or patience to lay about. As he did most things, he quickly and silently slipped his bonds and dashed to the shadows to have a look at what was going on. Cyndor was standing at attention in the middle of the room, and in front of him a man even larger than Cyndor was pacing back and forth, and against his long, wild white beard a medallion bounced with every gesture. Daniel immediately recognized the symbol of the moon and stars from several artifacts he had stolen from a temple dedicated to Lendor. Having gathered all the information he needed, Daniel started creeping back to the group to try and gather everyone to get out of there. They may have been holding their own against Cyndor, but he didn’t even want to think about trying to fight anyone more powerful. In fact, he was still slashed up and aching from the previous fight. No, the best thing to do would be for them to leave and regroup. Maybe they could go see the witch again, as she apparently wasn’t as aligned with Cyndor as she led them to believe.

And then he sneezed.

Before he could even realize what he had done, a flaming greatsword with a blade as wide as Daniel was tall slammed to the ground a hair’s breadth away from his nose. Gritting his teeth to keep from shaking like a leaf, Daniel turned to see Lendor glaring down at him with eyes that swirled like the cosmos. “Uh, hi?”

Lendor kept staring at him for several beats before booming out, “ _ **YOU ARE THE ONE WHO BELONGS HERE.”**_

“Bingo,” Daniel said, snapping and pointing at the god. He had never done that before in his life, and was so looking forward to getting rid of all of the different nervous ticks of this body. “So, yeah, if you could get us back where we belong, that’d actually be pretty amazing. Gonna be honest, I hate being human. You get us home and we’ll gladly go back to stabilizing the universe and all that jazz.”

Lendor’s face didn’t lighten from his gruff, stormy complexion, but he did stash his sword, so Daniel took that as a win. They both just stood in silence staring at one another until Lendor nodded. _**“I SHALL CONSIDER SENDING YOU HOME. WAKE THE OTHERS.”**_

Cyndor stepped in to protest. _**“LENDOR, YOU CANNOT DO THIS. YOU TOLD ME TO GUARD THE PLANES AND THE STREAM, ALLOW ME THE FREEDOM TO DO IT AS I SEE FIT.”**_

 _ **“AS YOU SEE FIT?”**_ Lendor roared, rounding on his son. _**“YOU DO NOT SEEM TO KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD. NO, I SHALL RESOLVE THAT WHICH YOU HAVE UPSET AND YOU SHALL DO NOTHING TO INTERFERE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”**_

_**“FATHER, I SIMPLY–”** _

_**“ENOUGH! ANOTHER WORD FROM YOU AND YOU SHALL JOIN YOUR SISTER IN BANISHMENT.”**_ This seemed to sufficiently cow Cyndor as he quieted and stepped back. Lendor turned back to Daniel and said, _**“YOUR PRESENCE IN THAT OTHER WORLD CAUSED MORE TROUBLE THAN YOU KNOW.”**_

“All I know is that it caused me more trouble than I want to deal with ever again.” Daniel grinned and darted over to Philip’s side and violently shook him. “Wake up, you python,” he hissed. “We’re in a meeting with a god and I need someone who actually knows how to speak to back me up.”

Philip was on his feet in an instant, his eyes bulging out of his head as he stared at the two gods before them. “I- I-”

“Great, you’re broken,” Daniel scoffed, moving to wake up Dan and Phil. “Hopefully one of these chuckle fucks will do a little better than that.”

“What’s happening?” Dan mumbled, rubbing his eyes, ears twitching every which a way.

Daniel rolled his eyes at the lack of emoting control and said, “Cyndor knocked us out. Now his boss is here and we’re talking.”

“Lendor?” Dan clarified, ears going straight up in the air. “Is he going to send us home?”

“I think so?” Daniel shrugged. “Honestly, I was a little distracted by his giant flame sword and didn’t pay attention.”

Dan groaned and rolled over to quickly wake Phil up and they were both on their feet. Daniel watched in almost awe as they muttered a few quick words to each other and then turned to face Lendor with matching smiles on their faces. Gone were the awkward, self-conscious nerds he had assumed them to be and in their place was a pair of determined performers. “Hi, there! Dan and Phil here,” Phil said brightly.

_**“I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.”** _

“Great!” Dan cut in. “Then you know what we want and why.”

_**“YOU WISH TO RETURN TO YOUR HOME REALM.”** _

“Yes, that exactly.”

_**“I KNOW NOT IF THAT IS THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION. YOU MAY NOT STAY HERE, BUT IT MAY BE BETTER TO DESTROY YOU AND RID THIS SYSTEM OF YOU.”** _

Dan sputtered for a moment then composed himself. “I thought that we were constants. Don’t you need us to keep alive to keep the universe in balance?”

_**“THERE ARE MILLIONS OF CONSTANTS. DO NOT VALUE YOURSELF SO HIGHLY. WHY SHOULD I RETURN YOU?”** _

“Because we didn’t do anything wrong,” Phil said simply. Lendor looked down at him curiously, so he continued. “You don’t want to waste any more time than necessary on us. Right? Well, just send us back. Sure, you could kill us, but what exactly would that do for you? If you let us go home then everything will be back the way it was, but you’ll have four new followers. If I know anything about gods, it’s that you love people loving you.”

Lendor thought this offer over for a moment before a wide, craggly grin split open his beard. He shrunk down to their size and held out a hand. “Phil Lester, you have a deal.”

Phil reached out and as soon as he took Lendor’s hand a blinding white light filled the cave.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Philip blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots from his eyes. He took in a deep breath through his nose and sighed at the comforting smell of the salty water outside his lair.

His _lair_.

He quickly flexed, feeling stronger than he had in days and before the thought could fully process, he was filling the room with his giant reptilian form. He let out a trill of glee and stretched out his wings and beat his tail through the air, just because he could. He was in the middle of shooting little fireballs into the air when he heard a familiar laugh from down by the door. He whipped his head around to see Daniel standing there in all his elfish glory, long bunny ears stuck straight up with delight. Philip dropped his chin right on the ground in front of Daniel who laughed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on Phil’s snout. “How you feeling, big guy?”

**Much better.**

Daniel grinned. **Good. You’ve been out since we got here and I was worried you were going into hibernation in your human form, which probably wouldn’t have been great.** Philip visibly cringed at the mention of his upcoming hibernation. As he had predicted, he could already feel the dark lull of sleep creeping up on the edges of his mind. **Hey, Philip, don’t worry about it. Take a nap like the big scaly baby you are. I’ve got myself covered.**

Philip grinned, wide and toothy at Daniel who took a step back and gave him a suspicious stare. **Well, I’m not ready to lie down just yet, and I’m not going to until I get at least one more flight in.**

Daniel’s eyes widened and he looked like he was about to start clapping his hands in excitement. **You mean-**

**Get on.**

Without another word, Daniel scurried up Phil’s side like he had done so many times before and sat himself down in his spot. Philip dashed for the exit and dived off the cliff straight down. He distantly heard Daniel’s cries and whoops of joy, but he was far more concerned with the way the air felt sluicing through his tightly woven scales once again. When he was moments away from catastrophe, he unfurled his wings, feeling them stretch and pull as the wind lifted him up and away from the water. He flapped, and went soaring straight up, passing through some clouds before he froze and fell backwards, letting gravity pull him towards the ground in a tail spin. He only allowed it for a moment though, then he banked hard to the left, leveling out his flight.

They flew like that for hours, neither one of them bringing up the fact that they were only postponing the inevitable. Philip was going to sleep, and in all likelihood, Daniel was either going to be an old man or dead by the time he woke up. As Philip flew he thought about this almost obsessively with each flap. There were basically no scenarios where he woke up and Daniel was waiting for him and absolutely no way they’d be able to adventure like they do now. Either Daniel would run off and settle down or die, or if neither of those happened he’d be too old to want to do anything more than sit around and read. Philip would gladly sit and read with him, but he’d still be in the prime of his life and after more treasure to add to his hoard.

**Philip, I swear to Lolth everything is going to be okay. You only stay out this long when you’re avoiding something and I’m not letting you avoid this. It’s just a really long nap.**

Philip sighed, but gave in. Even he had to admit that he was growing weary. Now that he had acknowledged it, his body was so tired that he nearly crashed landed in their cave, but he pulled it off just in time. He stumbled into his hoard chamber and collapsed on the pile of treasure. His blinks slowed until they fell shut and didn’t open again. The last thing he saw was Daniel smiling and waving at him, wishing him a good sleep.

And then he woke up.

At first, he was confused. Not only had none of his treasure gone missing, but there actually seemed to be significantly more now than before. In addition, the cave was warmly lit with softly glowing orbs of light that bobbed happily in place. As if appearing just to answer Philip’s questions, Daniel strolled in, a set of fancy robes in his hands, looking like he hadn’t aged a day.

Feeling this conversation would go better verbally, Philip shrunk and croaked out, “Daniel?”

Daniel jerked his head around and when he saw Philip his eyes lit up and he dropped the robes. “You’re awake!”

“Yeah, uh, I–”

He was cut off by Daniel throwing his arms around his chest, ears flicking madly each and every way. “You’re here! I hate to say it, but I actually kind of missed you.”

“How- How long was I asleep?” Philip fretted. There was only one thing worse than a dragon refusing to hibernate, and that was a dragon who woke up early.

Daniel sensed his worry and laughed. “Apparently, you were _very_ tired because you’ve been asleep for nearly 500 years.”

“But I - But you-” Philip sputtered.

Daniel laughed. “Yeah, about that. I have something to show you.” He grabbed his shirt sleeve and yanked it up to the elbow, revealing an intricate tattoo of three connected spirals. A triskelion. The mark of the Druids.

“You, you’re a druid now?” Philip gawked.

Daniel grinned. “Yeah. Twill, I don’t know if you remember them from the inn?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“Good. Well, they had this boyfriend and he was a druid, and they introduced me to him and we hit it off from there.”

“And so now you-”

“Age super slowly and plan on living for another six thousand or so years? Yeah, basically.”

Philip blinked at him in shock for a moment before laughing in delight and scooping him into his arms and spinning around. “This is literally the best way this could have gone down. You’re probably going to outlive _me_ now.”

Daniel grinned and took a step back. “Well, Philip, there’s a question I’ve literally waited centuries to ask you.”

“What?”

“Want to go steal some shit?”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil woke up like some people say they fall in love: shrieking, panicking, clutching his chest, and gasping for breath. Next to him on their bed Dan wasn’t looking so hot, either. He was curled up in a ball, clutching his head and rocking back and forth. “Um, Dan are-”

“I forgot to tell him to take my anti-depressants,” Dan moaned. “My body hasn’t had the right chemicals in it for days. It’s a wonder that asshole was standing up straight.”

“Oh, shit,” Phil breathed. He quickly fished around in Dan’s bedside table for the medication, figuring his boyfriend wasn’t up to moving at all. He shoved the pills into Dan’s hands and ran to the kitchen in search of a glass of water, then returned as quickly as he left. Dan gratefully downed the pill and water and when he was done, he just flopped back on the bed and covered his eyes with a pillow.

Phil smiled softly at the frankly adorable sight, and silently crawled into bed to wrap his arms around Dan’s middle. They laid like that, in silence, for a few hours until Dan’s head quit spinning and flashing random colors at him. “I missed this,” Dan whispered into the darkness.

Phil snorted and pressed his face to the back of Dan’s neck. “What, missing your medication and suffering from withdrawal symptoms?”

Dan sputtered out a laugh, and swatted backwards with his hand. “Shut _up_.”

Phil giggled and squeezed tighter, happily accepting the light smacks. They settled back down into quiet serenity when Phil softly says, “You could have died.”

“What? Phil, it was just a few days. And anyway my body would have adapted to the lack of medication eventually.”

“I’m not talking about the pills. I’m talking about the magic snake and the giant ice people and the literal god we got into a brawl with.”

“You could have died, too.”

“Yeah, but I had way more protection than you. I’m gonna say this again, but we fought a god and you were wearing the stuff shoes are made out of.”

Dan smiled and rolled over in Phil’s arms so he could press their foreheads together and look into those blue eyes that were looking at him like this was their last chance. “I wasn’t scared. I mean, up until the mirror incident I was terrified, but after that I was okay.”

Phil furrowed his brow. “How? That was the scariest, most dangerous thing we’ve ever done.”

“Cuz you were there.” Phil groaned and tried to cover his blushing cheeks, but Dan laughed and captured his hands in his own. “I mean it. You said it yourself, so long as we’re together, there’s not much we can’t do. And now we have proof.”

Phil smiled at him and Dan popped out his dimple and Phil had never been more in love. “Hold that thought,” he said, crawling out of the bed.

“Phil? What are you doing?” Dan asked, sitting up to better watch Phil dig around in his sock drawer. Phil came back with something hidden in his hands and dropped to both knees at Dan’s side. Dan’s eyes widened. “Oh my god.”

Phil smiled bashfully up at him and scratched his chin with the hand not behind his back. “Okay, so I was going to have this all planned out and I was going to do this on the 19th of October, because you’re a sap and that’s what you deserve, but this whole thing has showed me that some things are just too important to wait around for. Anyway, bare with me, this may get a little choppy.

“Daniel James Howell, I’ve known you for over eight years now, and we’ve been together almost that whole time. I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re my favorite person in the world. You’re the first person I want to tell when something goes right and the only person I feel like I can tell when everything goes wrong. I love your smart mouth and almost superhuman ability to have a comeback for any situation, even when the only thing you can say is ‘Shut up, rat.’ I love your smile and your dimple and I love that you feel comfortable enough around me to laugh like an angry goose. I love you, Dan Howell, and I guess there’s just one question I have for you.

“Will you marry me?”


End file.
